During World War II, snipers were seen as a spooky, merciless “Murder Inc.” by other soldiers—the brutal intimacy of their kills made them a breed apart. But in Afghanistan, where avoiding civilian deaths is a top priority, U.S. military sharpshooters may have found the war that needs them most. Going inside the world of Texas Army National Guardsman “Russ Crane,” who has dropped a Taliban fighter at 806 meters, the author discovers the sniper’s special talents and torments, and why it helps, in Crane’s view, to have God on your side.
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Guild members.
The Crisis of the American Intellectual
[...]There’s a lot of work ahead to enable the United States to meet the coming challenges. I’m reasonably confident that we remain the best placed large society on earth to make the right moves. Our culture of enterprise and risk-taking is still strong; a critical mass of Americans still have the values and the characteristics that helped us overcome the challenges of the last two hundred years.
But when I look at the problems we face, I worry. It’s not just that some of our cultural strengths are eroding as both the financial and intellectual elites rush to shed many of the values that made the country great. And it’s not the deficit: we can and will deal with that if we get our policies and politics right. And it’s certainly not the international competition: our geopolitical advantages remain overwhelming and China, India and the EU all face challenges even more daunting than ours and they lack our long tradition of successful, radical but peaceful reform and renewal.
No, what worries me most today is the state of the people who should be the natural leaders of the next American transformation: our intellectuals and professionals. Not all of them, I hasten to say: the United States is still rich in great scholars and daring thinkers. A few of them even blog.
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Do More Expensive Wines Taste Better?: They should! It’s a cardinal rule: more expensive items are supposed to be qualitatively better than their cheaper versions.
The latest Freakonomics Radio podcast is called “Do More Expensive Wines Taste Better?” (You can download/subscribe at iTunes[1], get the RSS feed[2] or listen live via the link in box at right.)
When you take a sip of Cabernet, what are you tasting? The grape? The tannins? The oak barrel? Or the price?
Believe it or not, the most dominant flavor may be the dollars. Thanks to the work of some intrepid and wine-obsessed economists (yes, there is an American Association of Wine Economists[3]), we are starting to gain a new understanding of the relationship between wine, critics and consumers.
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Stuxnet ‘virus’ could be altered to attack US facilities, report warns
Stuxnet, a computer worm that hit and may have severely damaged Iranian nuclear facilities[1], is the type of cyberweapon that could broadly harm the United States, undermining both society and government ability to defend the nation, says a strongly worded report to Congress.
Skip to next paragraph[2]
A successful broad-based attack on the US, using new variants of the Stuxnet weapon[3], could do enough widespread damage to critical infrastructure – including water, power, transportation, and other services – that it “threatens to cause harm to many activities deemed critical to the basic functioning of modern society,” said the little-noticed report issued by the Congressional Research Service (CRS) Dec. 9.
If retooled slightly, Stuxnet could be directed to target a wide swath of critical infrastructure facilities, rather than a narrow target such as Iran’s nuclear fuel-enrichment facilities and nuclear power plant, the eight-page CRS synopsis warns, quoting researchers and other analysts.
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Next year’s supposed to be the big year in Iraq: the final departure of U.S. troops. But the Iraqi Ministry of Interior wants you to know that it’s got a lot of business opportunities available long after that for the enterprising defense corporation.
Come by the Crown Plaza Hotel near National Airport just outside of Washington D.C. on March 3rd and 4th, because that’s when the Iraq Homeland and Border Control Conference will kick off. Sponsored by a business-expo firm called New Fields, which has hosted Iraqi defense officials for similar conferences, the event bills itself as a rare chance to “brief key Iraqi homeland and border control officials and decision maker [sic] about your equipments and services,” according to a typo-prone brochure for the event passed on to Danger Room.
The invited guests are practically a parade of Iraqi brass. Meet Gen. Jassem Jawad Ali, the interior ministry’s director of contracts; Gen. Anwar Ahmed, the Air Force commander; Brig. Gen. Salah Noori al-Bayaty, the “Oil Police deputy director”; Gen. Kareem Mohammed Saloom, the Ministry of Defense’s logistics adviser; and many more. They’ll be on the lookout to “acquire advance [sic] technology and surveillance systems to track and stop foreign militants,” the brochure advertises. Ready to pass out some business cards?
Life’s Little Mysteries
Body & Mind
Common things said to work (by people who are arguably impaired, anyway) include fresh air, coffee or a morning bloody Mary.
Is There a Hangover Cure?
Common things said to work (by people who are arguably impaired, anyway) include fresh air, coffee or a morning bloody Mary.
* Why Do We See Stars When Sneezing?
* How Much Spit Does a Person Produce?
* Why are Ears Shaped So Strangely?
* What Causes a Charlie Horse?
Originally posted 2010-12-17 16:02:46. Republished by Blog Post Promoter
