This video shows a neutrophil, a type of white blood cell, chasing down and engulfing a bacteria in the midst of field of red blood cells. Amazing agility, considering that the neutrophil is a single-celled organism! Visit this post to go one even one step deeper. Or check out "Powers of Ten" for ramping up or down in your search for awe.
At Democracy Now, Amy Goodman recently interviewed Michael Hastings, who authored the extensive article the resulted in President Obama's firing of General McChrystal. In that interview, Hastings urged the audience to take the time to read cables by U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan, which were leaked to the New York Times:
AMY GOODMAN: Let’s talk about Karl Eikenberry. This is a significant split between McChrystal and the ambassador, also a general or retired general, Ambassador Eikenberry, and the cables that he sent that Dan Ellsberg has called the new Pentagon Papers that he sent to Hillary Clinton but were leaked.
MICHAEL HASTINGS: I think this is the most fascinating development and the guy whose job is sort of the most in the balance right now is Ambassador Eikenberry, because it’s known as General McChrystal’s strategy, but guess who was also writing that strategy? General Petraeus. It was a devastating critique. I recommend anyone to go back and read those cables to see probably what was the most prescient and scathing critique of the strategy we’re pursuing and the leak angered McChrystal’s team beyond belief.
You can read those cables at this web page of the New York Times, along with this further description by the NYT. Ambassador Eikenberry's comments constitute a blistering and candid criticism of the policy the United States continues to pursue:In November 2009, Karl W. Eikenberry, the United States ambassador to Afghanistan and retired Army lieutenant general, sent two classified cables to his superiors in which he offered his assessment of the proposed U.S. strategy in Afghanistan. While the broad outlines of Mr. Eikenberry's cables were leaked soon after he sent them, the complete cables, obtained recently by The New York Times, show just how strongly the current ambassador feels about President Hamid Karzai and the Afghan government, the state of its military, and the chances that a troop buildup will actually hurt the war effort by making the Karzai government too dependent on the United States.The New York Times reported on these leaked cables on January 25, 2010.
I'm looking for a single word to capture this attitude, perhaps an entirely new word:
I really appreciate that you’re doing important task for me without any compensation. I don’t know anyone else capable of doing it at all, and it’s miraculous that you are doing it at all, and doing it this quickly, but could you please do even faster? And could you do it more often? But thank you so very much!Bald Machiavellian compliments, just enough compliments and pleasantries to keep the volunteer going . . .
A friend recently asked me about the ideas that moved me over the past few years. I've written about many of those ideas at Dangerous Intersection. Today, I'm offering links to some of my favorite posts. I decided to gather these posts into one place as a reminder of some of the "Best Of" ideas, those that have especially challenged and moved me. It's not my own writing that interests me here, but the content--most of these ideas are not my own. I was working mostly as a reporter. I should also note that thought I've gathered the ideas about which I have written, there are quite a few other authors who write at this site. To view the posts of any of the authors, simply go to the bottom right corner of the home page and click on one of the author names. I've divided the posts into some broad categories. The titles appear in the link, so I haven't bothered to link them all properly. Cognitive science and linguistics http://dangerousintersection.org/2010/06/26/why-are-human-animals-such-hypocrites-because-we-are-little-lawyers-riding-big-elephants/ http://dangerousintersection.org/2008/11/25/jonathan-haidt-urges-that-we-escape-moral-righteousness/ http://dangerousintersection.org/2009/05/03/why-it-matters-that-humans-are-animals/ http://dangerousintersection.org/2006/10/23/apollo-13-early-course-corrections-and-the-soul/ http://dangerousintersection.org/2009/12/12/reminder-that-struggle-for-existence-is-a-conceptual-metaphor/ http://dangerousintersection.org/2008/12/14/we-are-gods-with-anuses-another-look-at-%E2%80%9Cterror-management-theory%E2%80%9D/ [More . . . ]
Barack Obama is doing the bidding of Osama bin Laden. It's utterly clear that this is true. Obama is doing what bin Laden desires by buying into the Neocon approach to warmongering in the Middle East. Obama has fully bought into the world view of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. Consider this excerpt from an article by Alan Grayson:
Today, the war in Afghanistan becomes America's longest war. Longer than the war in Vietnam. Longer than the Korean War.It took America two years to end World War I, and bring peace to the world. World War II was a little harder; that took us 3½ years to finish off. The war in Afghanistan is over eight years old. And we're sending in more troops. We're not getting out. We getting deeper in. Would you like to know why? It's not hard to find the answers. Just read the transcript of Osama Bin Laden's 2004 speech.Bin Laden's plan was to bankrupt America, and he's well on his way. All he had to do was press America's SELF-DESTRUCT button with a dozen men with box-cutters, and we're helpless to turn off the fearful war-mongering. Here's Grayson's solution:
And at all times, Bin Laden's essential strategy has remained the same. Not, as so many think, to launch more attacks on American soil, but rather to make us destroy ourselves: "we are continuing this policy in bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy . . . ." Listen to Bin Laden summing up his strategy: "the real loser is ... you. It is the American people and their economy . . . ." How strange. It turns out that America's chief military strategist for the past decade is Osama Bin Laden himself. We've been doing exactly what he has wanted us to do: spend staggering sums on the military, until the American economy is bled dry. But it doesn't have to be that we. We are a democracy. We can choose peace. I have voted against Bin Laden's strategy to destroy America, and I will continue to do so. But I've done more than that. I have introduced a bill called The War is Making You Poor Act, HR 5353.