Will Israel Attack Iran?
As for the top-ranking military personnel with whom I’ve spoken who argued that an attack on Iran was either unnecessary or would be ineffective at this stage, Barak said: “It’s good to have diversity in thinking and for people to voice their opinions. But at the end of the day, when the military command looks up, it sees us — the minister of defense and the prime minister. When we look up, we see nothing but the sky above us.”
dear clusterflock
How do I feel about this SOTU?
Whalers, Activists & Drones
Anti-whaling activists intercepted Japan’s harpoon fleet far north of Antarctic waters on Sunday, they said, with the help of a military-style drone.
Sea Shepherd Conservation Society spokesman Paul Watson said the unmanned long-range drone, launched from the anti-whaling ship the Steve Irwin, had located the Japanese fleet and relayed the coordinates back to the activists.
I know I should be shocked at what appears to be the ease of obtaining a long-range drone for non-military use, but really I’m just fascinated that the activists named their boat the Steve Irwin.
for the Texans, specifically
Dallas teen missing since 2010 was mistakenly deported:
There are still many unanswered questions about how an African-American girl who speaks no Spanish is mistaken for a foreign national.
headline of the day
Pepsi Says Mountain Dew Can Dissolve Mouse Carcasses
headline of the day, II
Organizers of The World’s Premier Bacon Festival No Longer Hoarding Bacon
A Lot Did Happen
Hey gang, putting together one of those year-end compilations isn’t as easy as you’d think.
12 Indicted On Hate Crimes Charges For Hair Cutting Assaults Led By Break-Off Amish Group
I think this is my favorite story of 2011.
Fox News Christmas Card
For your analysis. (via Brian Stelter)
headline of the day
Errant ‘Mythbusters’ cannonball hits home in Dublin
headline of the day
Chicago universities preemptively buying up porn domains
headline of the day
EU bans claim that water can prevent dehydration
Image with a Little Bit of Context
I stumbled across this picture a few days ago and meant to post it sooner. The headline? ‘Cain’s Bodyguards Get Physical with Reporters‘.
Is that not the most comically over-intimidating presidential bodyguard you’ve ever seen?
How a reporter was arrested at #OWS for standing lawfully
Naomi Wolf in the Guardian:
I went over to the sidewalk at issue and identified myself as a NYC citizen and a reporter, and asked to see the permit in question or to locate the source on the police or event side that claimed it forbade citizen access to a public sidewalk. Finally a tall man, who seemed to be with the event, confessed that while it did have a permit, the permit did allow for protest so long as we did not block pedestrian passage.
I thanked him, returned to the protesters, and said: “The permit allows us to walk on the other side of the street if we don’t block access. I am now going to walk on the public sidewalk and not block it. It is legal to do so. Please join me if you wish.” My partner and I then returned to the event-side sidewalk and began to walk peacefully arm in arm, while about 30 or 40 people walked with us in single file, not blocking access.
Then a phalanx of perhaps 40 white-shirted senior offices descended out of seemingly nowhere and, with a megaphone (which was supposedly illegal for citizens to use), one said: “You are unlawfully creating a disruption. You are ordered to disperse.” I approached him peacefully, slowly, gently and respectfully and said: “I am confused. I was told that the permit in question allows us to walk if we don’t block pedestrian access and as you see we are complying with the permit.”
slow breaking news
Emily Roose’s thesis project, via Public School
headline of the day
Cat with 2 faces lives 12 years, sets record
headline of the day
Gordon Ramsay’s Porn Dwarf Double Eaten by Badger
No comment
Fox News on video games.
(via @brandonnn)
headline of the day
Pa. man charged again for putting ribs in pants
tweet of the day
‘Neither account of the acrimonious relationship could be independently confirmed’
Dany Larivière, the mayor of Saint-Théodore-d’Acton and the owner of an excavation company, says he placed the giant rock in his ex-wife’s driveway to try to get her to stop harassing him.
funeral for man entombed for 27 years in chimney
Daryl, did you write this?
Darcus Howe on the London Riots
It’s true, they’ll never replay this.
more on the D.B. Cooper hijacking case
Since I posted the latest speculation in the D.B. Cooper hijacking case, a mother and daughter have come forward with what they say, and the FBI believes, is credible information about who Cooper really was.
Marla Cooper recently came forward to the FBI with evidence that she believes proves that her uncle Lynn Doyle Cooper is the famed D.B. Cooper, the man hijacked and threatened to blow up a commercial plane flying to Seattle in 1971, then parachuted to the ground with $200,000 in hand.
Her mother, Grace Hailey, told ABC News that she doesn’t remember much about that Thanksgiving in 1971 where her brother-in-law returned to the house in Sisters, Oregon, but she believes he could be the hijacker. Hailey’s statements are one reason why the FBI thinks the tip from Marla Cooper is credible.
“I’ve always had a gut feeling it was L.D.,” Hailey told ABC News. “I think it was more what I didn’t know is what made me suspicious than what I did know, because whenever the topic came up it immediately got cut off again.”
Update: Amanda posted on the case a year ago.
A Detailed Account of the Raid on bin Ladin
On the morning of Sunday, May 1st, White House officials cancelled scheduled visits, ordered sandwich platters from Costco, and transformed the Situation Room into a war room. At eleven o’clock, Obama’s top advisers began gathering around a large conference table. A video link connected them to Panetta, at C.I.A. headquarters, and McRaven, in Afghanistan.
Brigadier General Marshall Webb, an assistant commander of JSOC, took a seat at the end of a lacquered table in a small adjoining office and turned on his laptop. He opened multiple chat windows that kept him, and the White House, connected with the other command teams. The office where Webb sat had the only video feed in the White House showing real-time footage of the target, which was being shot by an unarmed RQ 170 drone flying more than fifteen thousand feet above Abbottabad.
It’s the most detailed account of the raid I’ve seen, and includes the months of preparation that went into the mission. Plus, the surveillance details, like those above, add some technological flavor, but don’t seem to confirm the suspicion of real-time helmet cameras.
