• The US Army pays lip service to creative thinking

    I wrote a piece for this blog almost three year ago. I was hammered for it. This matters because I think it reflects larger institutional trends in the Army to stamp out creativity and critical thinking. My battalion commander at the time was fine with it. I told him that it would be mildly controversial. I said that I was going to defend my unit from some recent criticism, relate it to large problems in the Army, and argue that we were overcoming these issues… – Foreign Policy

  • Hillary Clinton is a hardcore interventionist

    On Jan. 13, 2011, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gave what turned out to be a remarkably prescient speech in Doha, Qatar. “The region’s foundations are sinking into the sand,” she warned. If you do not manage to “build a future that your young people will believe in,” she told the Arab heads of state in the audience, the status quo they had long defended would collapse. The very next day, Tunisia’s dictator was forced to flee the country. Almost two weeks later… – Foreign Policy

  • Russia and Egypt can’t be trusted to report the truth about downed airliner

    THE CRASH of a Russian airliner in the Sinai Peninsula last week posed an immediate test for Russia, whose citizens made up most of the 224 killed, and for Egypt, which is responsible for security at the beach resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, where the flight originated. So it says much about the autocratic regimes that control the two countries that the first word that the destruction of the aircraft might have been a terrorist attack — and the first measures to protect the tens of thousands of tourists still in the Sinai — came from the government of Britain. – The Washington Post

  • PKK announces ceasefire


    via France24

  • Info about American satellites in geo-synchronis orbit since the 70’s

    The Defense Support Program (DSP) satellites provide early warning for Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) and tactical launches. This once classified satellite, now known as DSP, was first launched in 1970 and became the first of many to be launched over the next 37 years. DSP satellites use infrared sensors to detect heat from missile and booster plumes against the Earth’s background in support of the missile early warning and missile defense mission areas. – Los Angeles Air Force Base

[Featured image: Russian tourists at Sharm el-Sheikh airport, in Egypt, on Friday. (Khaled Elfiqi/European Pressphoto Agency)]