“I don’t believe that adults should impose their vision of the world on children. Children are very much capable of forming their own visions. There’s no need to force our own visions onto them.”
- Hayao Miyazaki
PHOTOS: London Riots
Riots spread to 11 districts across London, marked by fierce clashes with police as shops were looted and buildings set ablaze.
British Prime Minister David Cameron cut short his holiday in Italy to return to London for a crisis meeting today as youth riots swept across the capital and spread to Birmingham in central England and Liverpool.
news world world news london london riots riots england england riots police crime
Wed, August 10th 2011
Photos: Nagasaki Bombing Anniversary and the Birth of the Atomic Age
Today marks the 66th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki in 1945 that killed an estimated 73,000 people.
Here’s the front page of the Denver Post from that day.
Also, take a look back at images from the Atomic Age, from the discovery of man-made nuclear reactions to the development and testing of the atomic bomb.
japan news nagasaki atomic bomb tech history historic news nagasaki
Wed, August 10th 2011
Wed, August 10th 2011
A herder walks along an animal market in the border town of Dobley, Somalia, on July 13.
Photo by Rebecca Blackwell/Associated Press via Big Picture
photography photo africa somalia drought news camels animals
Mon, August 8th 2011
The War in Hipstamatic: A rare and beautiful look at Afghanistan, through an iPhone
This experiment in photojournalism comes to FP by way of Teru Kuwayama and Balazs Gardi, who embedded with Marine Battalion 1/8 in Helmand for five months starting in September 2010. They collaborated with three other photographers on a project called Basetrack — a multiplatform, social-media cornucopia; a hybrid of digital maps and feeds, Facebook posts and musings, interviews and stunning photographs. We’re pleased to share their remarkable images with our readers.
Sun, August 7th 2011
Because Every Country is the Best at Something
I’m from the United States: we’re number one for serial killers. Woo.
And I’m also from Canada, which is the best country at drinking fruit juice.
Sun, August 7th 2011
Sun, August 7th 2011
Sat, August 6th 2011
"By 2050, with a projected population of 10 billion people and without a change in consumption patterns, the cumulative use of natural resources will amount to the productivity of up to 27 planet Earths."
Sat, August 6th 2011
"
Do you realize that the… bank bailout — that sum of money is greater than the entire 50-year running budget of NASA. And so when someone says ‘We don’t have enough money for this space program,’ I’m (saying) ‘No, it’s not that you don’t have enough money. It’s that the distribution of money that you’re spending is warped in some way, that you are removing the only thing that gives people something to dream about tomorrow.’
…In the 60’s and 70’s, you didn’t have to go more than a week before there was an article in Life magazine — ‘The Home Of Tomorrow.’ ‘The City Of Tomorrow.’ ‘The Transportation Of Tomorrow.’ All that ended in the 1970’s after we stopped going to the Moon. It all ended. We stopped dreaming.
And so I worry that the decisions the Congress makes doesn’t factor in the consequences of those decisions on tomorrow. Tomorrow is gone — metaphoric tomorrow, not the literal tomorrow.
(Politicians) are playing for the quarterly report; they’re playing for the next election cycle. And that is mortgaging the actual future of this nation. The rest of the world just passes by.
"Dr. NEIL DeGRASSE TYSON, reacting to space programs such as the James Webb Space Telescope — the successor to the Hubble — falling to budget cuts, on Real Time (via inothernews)
(via crookedindifference)
Sat, August 6th 2011
Mubarak Spectacle Captivates the Middle East
Hosni Mubarak’s televised trial transformed Egypt and much of the Middle East into a vast living room on Wednesday, with millions of viewers, from the shops of Amman and Jerusalem to the hovels of impoverished Yemen, mesmerized by the live broadcasts of a once-unthinkable spectacle beamed from a Cairo court.
…
“Everybody is watching from all parts of the society, young and old, pro-democracy or pro-government,” said Hussain Abdulla, 23, a human rights activist in Bahrain, where the monarchy has suppressed, sometimes violently, a democracy movement inspired by the events in Egypt. “Of course all the people who are pro-democracy are happy with it and it gives them a push to continue struggling.”
Thu, August 4th 2011
When Havens Fight Back
As global investors flee the dollar and euro for refuge in stronger currencies, those havens have started to send out a message: enough.
Demand for currencies like the Japanese yen and Swiss franc, seen as relatively safe assets to hold in turbulent times, have surged in recent weeks, driving up their value as investors have dumped dollars and euros as a result of debt worries in the United States and Europe.
A strong currency might sound like a validation of investor confidence in the performance of an economy. But for trade-dependent Japan and Switzerland, a sudden jump in the value of their currencies can wreak havoc by making their exports uncompetitive.
Thu, August 4th 2011
Thu, August 4th 2011
PHOTO BLOG: Somalia Famine
Somalia is suffering its worst drought and famine in 60 years. Getting aid to the country has been difficult because al-Qaida-linked militants control much of the country’s most desperate areas.
The U.N.’s food arm said that famine is likely to spread across all regions of Somalia’s south in the next four to six weeks. Famine conditions are likely to persist until December, the Food and Agriculture Organization said.
Across Somalia, 3.7 million people are in crisis, the U.N. says, out of a population of 7.5 million. The U.N. says 3.2 million are in need of immediate, lifesaving assistance.
(Photos by Tyler Hicks/The New York Times)
Thu, August 4th 2011
This week’s cover: the absence of leadership in the West is frightening—and also rather familiar.
(via irmajor)
Wed, August 3rd 2011
