Peace and Security
Times Square Bomber Popped a Bubble
Bubbles are built on illusions. We believed that our high-tech companies and, after that, our houses would continue to rise in value and then…pop! We believed that we could continue offshore oil drilling without environmental consequences and then…pop! And we believed that the drone program in Pakistan, which expanded in 2009 and has killed hundreds of civilians, would not generate any blowback and then…Faisal Shahzad.
Europe’s Sick of U.S. Nukes
Europe wants the United States to remove the nuclear weapons it stockpiled across the continent during the Cold War, the Associated Press reports.
Terrorists’ Right to Bear Arms
The Huffington Post’s Dan Froomkin reports that Senators Lindsay Graham (R-SC) and Susan Collins (R-ME) balked during a hearing at supporting new legislation that would prevent suspected terrorists from buying guns.
Massacres Expose another Reason to End Iraq and Afghanistan Wars
In today’s wars, exposés are mostly relegated to page 13 of The New York Times, and there’s no evidence so far that any consciences were particularly shocked.
Priority Check
The War Resisters League produced a pie chart that shows how much of our tax revenue funds warfare.
No More Torture
The Guardian, a British newspaper, reports that former “senior officers” in the MI6–the UK’s version of the CIA–are now criticizing U.S. policies and officials for using torture.
What If We’re Not So Angry?
aIt seems the more conservative you are, the more aggressive you want America to be with our nukes. If we’re angry loose cannons with an itchy finger on the button, the thinking seems to go, rogue countries will think long and hard about crossing us.
Nuclear Weapons: A Dangerous Relic
While diplomatic and political relations with Russia may have warmed since the Soviet Union’s demise, the process of reducing nuclear weapons has proven to be more complicated and slower. So much slower, in fact, that at present, the U.S. and Russian arsenals still make up 95 percent of the world’s 23,000 nuclear weapon stockpiles. Those 23,000 nuclear weapons could destroy the entire planet many times over.
Flying and Radiation Risks
Whole body X-ray scanning machines were developed and first used to detect theft at gold and diamond mines on and inside the bodies of workers in Africa. They are fluoroscopic X-ray machines that provide a real-time image of a person’s body using “back-scatter,” or “soft” X-rays. They emit much less penetrating energy than machines found in a medical setting, such as CT scanners. However, like all machines, if their design, manufacture, calibration or maintenance is defective, then doses to passengers and security staff could be larger than claimed.
Border Boondoggle
