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Drone Deaths, Obama, and a Better Use for These Craft
By Lisette Cheresson
Earlier this year, two innocent hostages—one American, one Italian—were killed by a US-led unmanned drone strike meant to target al-Qaeda. By some estimates, the drone strikes that President Obama has authorized have murdered more innocent people than the 9/11 attacks. As war rages on across the Middle East and the US continues to fire unmanned strikes that are killing civilians, it’s worth looking back and discovering how this technology came to be… and how it could be put to positive uses instead. See this documentary.
Scott Walker and the League of Small-Government Gentlemen
By Dan Engelke
“Who do we want? Scott Walker! Why do we want him? Because we’ve filled his coffers in exchange for small government initiatives!”—say the Koch brothers, Bradley Foundation, and many others. Okay, that’s not an exact quote, but they have poured money into small-government think tanks that have, you guessed it, supported small-government Wisconsin.
WHO
Hillary Clinton Sold Out Honduras: Lanny Davis, Corporate Cash, and the Real Story About the Death of a Latin American Democracy
Salon’s story centers on the military coup in Honduras that removed President Zelaya, although Zelaya resisted the coup. That’s when Hillary’s State Department and long-time Clintonista Lanny Davis sprung into action—launching a seemingly coincidental PR offensive attacking the intransigence of the elected president in the face of the military coup. Alas, President Zalaya raised the minimum wage, and that didn’t sit well with Honduran elites or, it seems, with the Business Council of Latin America—the group that hired Davis to sell the coup here in the US
Santorum Calls Crowd of Four in Rural Iowa a Success
Former Pennsylvania Senator and two-time GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum is drawing crowds in Iowa. No, seriously. He’s got a Sharpie and he is drawing faces on cardboard cutouts and standing them up in the audience at his otherwise barren campaign events. Okay, that’s not really true, but it is true that Santorum is literally just another face in a large GOP crowd this time around. It is so crowded that there might not be room for him at a Fox-sponsored debate. Ouch.
WHAT
A Practical Vision of a More Equal Society
Last year, Thomas Piketty published Capital in the 21st Century—which employed a sharp Marxist critique of the current economic system to make the case that capitalism is inherently unequal. Now Piketty reviews a new book that outlines remedies to the inequality caused, according to Piketty, by capitalism. In Inequality: What Can Be Done? Anthony B. Atkinson proposes a radically progressive tax plan to ameliorate the wealth gap. Kinda like taxes during the Eisenhower Era. Go figure.
The Global Struggle to Respond to the Worst Refugee Crisis in Generations
The New York Times produced an excellent graphic detailing the rapidly-growing crisis in multiple regions at the same time. Sudden migrations out of Myanmar, persistent flows of refugees out of war-torn Syria and the staggering flood of Africans through the failed state of Libya are forcing the world’s navies to rethink their roles and strategies.
WHY
You’re About to See an Incredibly Rare Cloud, and It’s Proof the Climate Is Changing
If sometime over the next couple weeks you see a noctilucent cloud, then you’ve just seen some convincing proof that climate change is really happening. Noctilucent clouds are the world’s highest clouds and are usually only seen in polar regions. But now the clouds are showing up as far south as 40 degrees latitude in the Northern Hemisphere and that means that the mesosphere—near the edge of space—is changing. Guess why?
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