-
If organized religion is the opium of the masses, then disorganized religion is the marijuana of the lunatic fringe.
-
1917 J. A. F. Fisher Let. 9 Sept. in Memories (1919) v. 78, I hear that a new order of Knighthood is on the tapis—O.M.G. (Oh! My God!)—Shower it on the Admiralty!
-
On February 5th, 2003, then-Secretary of State Colin Powell went to the United Nations, to make the case for war in Iraq. A central plank of his presentation: the anthrax attacks that killed five people and helped send the country into a panic in the days after 9/11.
“Less than a teaspoon-full of dry anthrax in an envelope shut down the United States Senate in the fall of 2001. This forced several hundred people to undergo emergency medical treatment and killed two postal workers just from an amount just about this quantity that was inside of an envelope,” Powell said. “Saddam Hussein could have produced 25,000 liters. If concentrated into this dry form, this amount would be enough to fill tens upon tens upon tens of thousands of teaspoons..”
By the end of the following month, the invasion of Iraq was underway.
-
✰ Manslaughter charge explored in BP spillManslaughter and perjury are among possible charges that Justice Department investigators are exploring in the early stages of their probe into the Gulf oil spill, people familiar with the inquiry said Tuesday.
-
One week after an international military coalition intervened in Libya, the cost to U.S. taxpayers has reached at least $600 million, according figures provided by the Pentagon.
U.S. ships and submarines in the Mediterranean have unleashed at least 191 Tomahawk cruise missiles from their arsenals to the tune of $268.8 million, the Pentagon said.
U.S. warplanes have dropped 455 precision guided bombs, costing tens of thousands of dollars each.
A downed Air Force F-15E fighter jet will cost more than $60 million to replace.
And operation of the war craft, guzzling ever-expensive fuel to maintain their positions off the Libyan coast and in the skies above, could reach millions of dollars a week, experts say.
-
Our Milky Way galaxy may be home to at least two billion Earthlike planets, a new study says.
But don’t start making colonization plans just yet: The number is actually far lower than many scientists were expecting, which could make it hard to find other “Earths” in our galaxy, the study authors say.
-
✰ The Drones Are Malfunctioning…And Another One, This Makes ThreeReptiles speakin’ in tongues…
-
Subcontractors to several companies connected to the plant have reportedly been offered 80,000 to 100,000 yen a day (£608 to £760) to join the operation, according to one former plant worker. The team of men inside the complex have been dubbed “samurai” and “suicide squads” in the popular press.
-
Hidehiko Nishiyama, deputy director-general of the agency, played down the potential effects of the radioactive seawater as residents in the area had been evacuated and there was no fishing activity in the region.
“Iodine 131 has a half-life of eight days, and even considering its concentration in marine life, it will have deteriorated considerably by the time it reaches people,” Nishiyama told a news conference.
-
The reason radioactivity can be measured is that radioactive material is escaping. What is dangerous is when that material enters your body and irradiates it from inside. These industry-mouthpiece scholars come on TV and what to they say? They say as you move away the radiation is reduced in inverse ratio to the square of the distance. I want to say the reverse. Internal irradiation happens when radioactive material is ingested into the body. What happens? Say there is a nuclear particle one meter away from you. You breathe it in, it sticks inside your body; the distance between you and it is now at the micron level. One meter is 1000 millimeters, one micron is one thousandth of a millimeter. That’s a thousand times a thousand: a thousand squared. That’s the real meaning of “inverse ratio of the square of the distance.” Radiation exposure is increased by a factor of a trillion. Inhaling even the tiniest particle, that’s the danger.
-
In normal times, Masataka Shimizu lives in The Tower, a luxury high-rise in the same upscale Tokyo district as the U.S. Embassy. But he hasn’t been there for more than two weeks, according to a doorman.
The Japanese public hasn’t seen much of him recently either. Shimizu, the president of Tokyo Electric Power Co., or Tepco, the company that owns a haywire nuclear power plant 150 miles from the capital, is the most invisible — and most reviled — chief executive in Japan.
Amid rumors that Shimizu had fled the country, checked into a hospital or committed suicide, company officials said Monday that their boss had suffered an unspecified “small illness” because of overwork after a 9.0-magnitude earthquake sent a tsunami crashing onto his company’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. -
I’ve been eating two family-size bags a day for two years, and little else for the past decade. My shopping trolley looks as if I’m having a children’s party. The idea of eating anything else is repellent; I don’t like being full and bloated, which is how “proper food” makes me feel. I have a tea for breakfast, skip lunch and then I’m ready for my first large bag of crisps at around 4pm and my second bag at 8pm. During the day I’ll have a few cups of tea and sometimes a cola. I don’t get ravenous because my body is used to it after all these years.
-
While testing out the paywall Monday afternoon, Mashable readers Dmitry Beniaminov and Yuri Victor pointed out that it’s breathtakingly easy to subvert the paywall. Readers need only remove “?gwh=numbers” from the URL. They can also clear their browser caches, or switch browsers as soon as they see the subscription prompt. All three of these simple fixes will let them continue reading.
-
Here’s what the Times Square station looked like 25 years ago. The footage was shot with a 16mm film camera in June of ’86, about three years before the MTA officially implemented its “clean train” policy and took subway cars festooned with graffiti out of service. Also of interest, signs for the “K” and “CC” trains.
Submit Links:
SeMeNSPeRmS@SeMeNSPeRmS.com
