Russian aircraft carried out a bombing attack against Syrian opposition fighters on Wednesday, including at least one group trained by the C.I.A., eliciting angry protests from American officials and plunging the complex sectarian war there into dangerous new territory.
Catalonia goes to the polls in an 'incredible moment for democracy' →
On Sunday, Spain will get a glimpse of how far the movement that first took root in small villages such as Gallifa has spread, as Catalans cast their votes in a regional election billed as a quasi-referendum on independence.
The results could launch Spain into uncharted territoryand plunge the country into one of its deepest political crises of recent years, as Madrid squares off against an openly secessionist government of a region that accounts for 16% of Spain’s population and a fifth of its economic output.
Shell abandons Arctic drilling after disappointing results →
Royal Dutch Shell has abandoned its controversial attempts to drill for oil off Alaska's northwest coast, citing disappointing results from exploratory wells. According to a report from The New York Times, the company said that while it had found "indications of oil and gas" in the region's Burger prospect, "these are not sufficient to warrant further exploration." The decision, which will be welcomed by environmental campaigners, means billions of dollars of writedowns for Shell, which spent $7 billion — or around 20 percent of its exploration budget — since 2007 developing prospects in the Arctic.
Afghan forces undertake bid to regain key city seized by Taliban →
Afghan forces attempted to strike back Tuesday in the northern city of Kunduz but faced stiff resistance from the Taliban, whose fighters overran the city a day earlier in a major blow to Afghanistan’s Western-backed government.
On Tuesday evening, Taliban units threatened the city’s airport, thwarting efforts by Afghan troops to overcome one of the militant group’s biggest offensives in the 14-year war.
As part of the counteroffensive, Afghan forces were backed by at least two U.S. airstrikes, including one intended to consolidate their positions around the airport.
The fight to reclaim Kunduz — Afghanistan’s sixth-largest city and a strategic gateway to Central Asia — is one of the Afghan military’s biggest tests in its campaign against the Taliban, and it raises questions about the withdrawal timetable for U.S. and other coalition troops.
The Revolution Devours Its Own →
Great quick analysis of the now-long-running schizophrenia in the Republican party and how its internal fighting destroys its actually effective politicians.
John Boehner ends his career a conservative...
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What’s amazing about all of this is the degree to which Boehner and his team have actually delivered conservative policy. Under his leadership, congressional Republicans have slashed federal spending—achieving $3.2 trillion in cuts—and blocked important parts of Obama’s agenda, like comprehensive immigration reform. Despite this, rank-and-file Republicans hate him. According to a new surveyfrom NBC News and the Wall Street Journal, 72 percent of GOP primary voters are dissatisfied with Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, including the 36 percent who want them “immediately removed” from their posts.
John Boehner, House Speaker, Will Resign From Congress →
Not just the Speaker's position, but from Congress, entirely.
The Volkswagen Scandal Is Just the Beginning →
But security researchers have run into a surprising roadblock: copyright law. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act prohibits the “circumvention” of digital rights management software that locks down media. The DMCA was intended to keep digital movies and music safe from pirates who’d upload them onto the Internet (fat lot of good that has done), but it has been repurposed for some unintended consequences. Technology companies regularly threaten security researchers who try to look inside their products, arguing that these products contain copyrighted software that must be kept secret, because reasons. (Never mind that these reasons never have much to do with copyright; the resale value of the software inside a garage door opener is nil.)
Despite the fact that this kind of tinkering is explicitly legal under every states’ trade secret laws, tech companies try to use copyright threats under the DMCA to shut it down, keeping the security community in the dark about vulnerabilities in the devices we use every day. As more things have software inside them — from baby monitors to firearms — the risks to privacy and safety are mounting. Anything that can think for itself is also something that can be mind-controlled; looking inside its digital brain is the only way to be confident it hasn’t been hit with an Imperius curse. Welcome to the Internet of Things That Can Kill You.
With these concerns in mind, the Electronic Frontier Foundation asked for a pair of car-related exemptions from the DMCA. One would let security researchers investigate the software in cars; the other would let car owners tinker with and repair their cars. Unsurprisingly, the Auto Alliance — a trade group including VW’s North American unit — filed extensive commentsagainst both, arguing in large part that the black boxes need to stay sealed to keep everyone safe...
Living in a Code Yellow World →
In the 1980s, handgun expert Jeff Cooper invented something called the Color Code to describe what he called the "combat mind-set."...
Cooper talked about remaining in Code Yellow over time, but he didn't write about its psychological toll. It's significant. Our brains can't be on that alert level constantly. We need downtime. We need to relax. This is why we have friends around whom we can let our guard down and homes where we can close our doors to outsiders. We only want to visit Yellowland occasionally.
Since 9/11, the US has increasingly become Yellowland, a place where we assume danger is imminent. It's damaging to us individually and as a society.
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The same effects occur when we believe we're living in an unsafe situation even if we're not. The psychological term for this is hypervigilance. Hypervigilance in the face of imagined danger causesstress and anxiety. This, in turn, alters how your hippocampus functions, and causes an excess of cortisol in your body. Now cortisol is great in small and infrequent doses, and helps you run away from tigers. But it destroys your brain and body if you marinate in it for extended periods of time.
Not only does trying to live in Yellowland harm you physically, it changes how you interact with your environment and it impairs your judgment. You forget what's normal and start seeing the enemy everywhere. Terrorism actually relies on this kind of reaction to succeed.