NotesThe reason we donât see exploding battery attacks more often is not because itâs technically hard, itâs because the erosion of public trust in everyday things isnât worth it. The current discourse around the potential reach of such explosive devices is clouded by the assumption that itâs technically difficult to implement and thus unlikely to find its way to our front door.That assumption is wrong. It is both surprisingly easy to do, and could be nearly impossible to detect. After I read about the attack, it took half an hour to combine fairly common supply chain knowledge with Wikipedia queries to propose the mechanism detailed below.FeedEmbedUnfurl
Noteswhat if the codes to launch nuclear war were kept inside the chest-cavity of a young volunteer, and the President would have to hack them out of this young man's chest before he could commence armageddon? Unfurl
NotesAt the Wagah border post that separates northern India from eastern Pakistan, the distance between the throngs of Muslims that gather on the Pakistan side and the mostly Hindus and Sikhs congregated on the Indian side is but a few feet. But it feels like miles for those old enough to remember the days when they could walk from one side to the other without ever leaving India. And although the nightly border guard ceremony here may be grounded in a bloody history of partition conflict, for locals and the occasional tourist it remains a symbol of a peaceful back-and-forth between two neighbors who have fought each other in three wars. And for Pakistan, the changing of the flag ceremony represents a rare refuge of decorum amid the swirling chaos that engulfs their country.Unfurl
NotesThe Wagah (Punjabi: ਾŕ¨ŕ¨žŕ¨š) border closing 'lowering of the flags' ceremony is a daily military practice that the security forces of India (Border Security Force) and Pakistan (Pakistan Rangers) have jointly followed since 1959.[1] This ceremony takes place every evening before sunset at the Wagah border, which as part of the Grand Trunk Road was the only road link between these two countries before the opening of the Aman Setu in Kashmir in 1999. The ceremony starts with a blustering parade by the soldiers from both the sides, and ends up in the perfectly coordinated lowering of the two nations' flags. It is called the beating retreat border ceremony on the international level. One infantryman (Jawan) stands at attention on each side of the gate. As the sun sets, the iron gates at the border are opened and the two flags are lowered simultaneously. The flags are folded and the ceremony ends with a retreat that involves a brusque handshake between soldiers from either side, followed by the closing of the gates again. The spectacle of the ceremony attracts many visitors from both sides of the border, as well as international tourists.FeedUnfurl
NotesHereâs the thing: If youâre using the holiday season to go out of your way to be an asshole to someone, believer or non-believer, youâre doing it wrong, and I wish you would stop. Thatâs not a war, itâs a slap fight and itâs embarrassing. As a non-believer, when someone says âMerry Christmasâ to me, I say âMerry Christmasâ back, because generally speaking I understand that what âMerry Christmasâ means in this context is âI am offering you good will in a way I know how,â and I appreciate that sentiment. Left to my own devices, I use âHappy holidaysâ because I know a lot of people who arenât Christians (or at least Christmas-centered) and that seems the best way to express my own good will; the vast majority of people get what Iâm doing and appreciate that sentiment too.FeedEmbedUnfurl
NotesItem number 3,785 in the Republicans-really-don't-care-about-the-deficit file is this from Speaker John Boehner rejecting yet another offer of concessions from Democrats in the Super Congress negotiations. Unfurl
Notes<blockquote>As long as the CIA â now backed by the military and the State Department â has a free hand to wage the secret drone war in tribal Pakistan, it will continue to bottle up al-Qaida and its allies, degrading the threat they pose. They will also kill more Tariqs and Waheeds. And because the drone war remains a classified CIA program, the CIA will not have to account for its actions to anybody, least of all the U.S. or Pakistani publics.</blockquote>
This headline is wussy. Impersonal DRONES don't kill people, assassin pilots at remote consoles kill people. This isn't Terminator, yet.Unfurl
Notes"Athens failed in Syracuse â and doomed their democracy â not because they fought in the wrong place and at the wrong time, but because they werenât ruthless enough."Unfurl
NotesOh for crying out loud, put on your big girl panties on and use Boot Camp to play your Windows games. It's like a 20 second reboot these days, plus another 2-3 minutes before I'm connecting to a server in Team Fortress 2 (for example). "There's just one problem with Warhammer Online though...there's no Mac version! Yep, that's right. Somewhere along the way in its development Mythic Entertainmentâthe company who makes WARâdecided that they simply couldn't be bothered doing a Mac version. Unlike Blizzard or Maxis who both released Mac versions of World of Warcraft and SporeâMythic stupidly did not. "Unfurl
Notes"President Bush has admitted to The Times that his gun-slinging rhetoric made the world believe that he was a âguy really anxious for warâ in Iraq. He said that his aim now was to leave his successor a legacy of international diplomacy for tackling IrUnfurl
Notes"Either way, the direct costs of the Iraq war exceed the maximum cost estimate for a manned Mars expedition, infrastructure and all, by 20%"FeedUnfurl
Notes"Chalcedony wasn't built for crying. She didn't have it in her, not unless her tears were cold tapered glass droplets annealed by the inferno heat that had crippled her."Unfurl
Notes"A conscientious objector is one who is opposed to serving in the armed forces and/or bearing arms on the grounds of moral or religious principles."Unfurl
Notes"No money for kids' health insurance, no money to help poor families pay their heating bills but President Bush wants $190 billion additional for 2008 for his wars in Iraq and Afghanistan"Unfurl
Notes"These developments would be disturbing enough, but what they point to is an interruption in this nation's most important public tradition - the movement from recognition of a problem to its attempted resolution."Unfurl
Notes"As we do the work of bridge building and improving our host citizens' lives, if the people providing our transportation and security are antagonizing, angering and even killing the people we are putatively trying to help, our entire mission is underminedUnfurl
Notes"We canât afford to keep being this stupid! We have got to get our groove back. We need a president who will unite us around a common purpose, not a common enemy."Unfurl
Notes"In reading the comments to my post yesterday, I see that many of you were confused about my positions. Evidently all of you are brilliant, so I assume the problem is on my end. With your indulgence, allow me to clarify."Unfurl
Notes"A network engineer going by the hacker handle 'Deviant Ollam' has taken it upon himself to send care packages of a different sort to troops serving overseas, with him ditching the usual goods in favor of hard drives filled with movies, music and other coUnfurl
Notes"Humankind is losing its history for the pleasure of private collectors living safely in their luxurious houses and ordering specific objects for their collection."Unfurl
Notes"As you can see from the Gestapo memo, moreover, the Nazis were adamant that their "enhanced interrogation techniques" would be carefully restricted and controlled, monitored by an elite professional staff, of the kind recommended by Charles Krauthammer,Unfurl
Notes"We've already got one that doesn't feel he needs to understand the region, whose response is fear-based politics and vengeance-based foreign policy, and we don't need another. "Unfurl
Notes"Gordon Brown is prepared to risk the future of the "special relationship" with the United States by reversing Tony Blair's support for the Iraq war, President George W Bush has been warned."Unfurl
Notes"The percussive march of these statements is so forceful, one after another after another, that it suggests Cheney wanted war no matter what."Unfurl
Notes"the idea that the national security adviser is subcontracting responsibility for the nationâs most pressing foreign policy crisis â and must recruit someone of stature to get the attention of the cabinet â is provoking criticism of Mr. Hadley himseUnfurl
Notes"Collectively, we need to start thinking about what the post-post-9/11 world looks like, a world where terrorism will certainly still exist. It can either be a world of arm-waving fear, or a world of informed resolve"Unfurl
Notes"Military planners have abandoned the idea that standing up Iraqi troops will enable American soldiers to start coming home soon and now believe that U.S. troops will have to defeat the insurgents and secure control of troubled provinces. "Unfurl
Notes"Boosting U.S. troop levels in Iraq by 21,500 would create major logistical hurdles for the Army and Marine Corps, which are short thousands of vehicles, armor kits and other equipment needed to supply the extra forces, U.S. officials said."Unfurl
Notes"a messy, difficult, long-term struggle against exceptionally dangerous criminals who actually like nothing better than being put on the same level of historical importance as Hitler â can you imagine a better recruiting tool?"Unfurl
NotesI understand why they drive this way, but man... wouldn't it piss you off if someone were doing this in your streets? "Watch and see how the American soldiers have to drive through Iraqi streets to limit risks of attacks."Unfurl
Notes"Like a blue-blood version of a Mob family with global reach, the Bushes have eliminated one more key witness to the important historical events that led the U.S. military into a bloody stalemate in Iraq and pushed the Middle East to the brink of calamityUnfurl
Notes"President Bush acknowledged for the first time yesterday that the United States is not winning the war in Iraq and said he plans to expand the overall size of the "stressed" U.S. armed forces to meet the challenges of a long-term global struggle againstUnfurl
Turning Everyday Gadgets into Bombs is a Bad Idea ÂŤ bunnie's blog
Barbara Leeâs Lone Vote on Sept. 14, 2001, Was as Prescient as It Was Brave and Heroic
Wagah border ceremony - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Reminder: Tis the Season Not to Be an Ass â Whatever
Awlaki's 16-year-old son killed by US drone
An End to Endless War in Sight?
An American Teen-ager in Yemen (Amy Davidson/Close Read)
Charlie's Diary: Alternative boondoggles
Daily Kos: A Post-Bush Mentality
McClatchy Washington Bureau | 04/19/2007 | Training Iraqi troops no longer driving force in U.S. policy