Government-sponsored study destroys DEA’s classification of marijuana

APOD: A Sundial that Shows Solstice (and Equinox)

very cool!

Collapsing U.S. credibility

Two Op-Eds in The New York Times this morning both warn of the precipitous decline of American credibility on matters of human rights and peace ushered in by the Obama presidency. Taken together, they explain much of why I’ve been writing what I’ve been writing over the last three years. The first is from Columbia Professor and cyber expert Misha Glenny, who explains the significance of the first ever deployment of cyberwarfare — by the U.S. (first under Bush and accelerated under Obama), along with Israel, against Iran:,

The second is from former U.S. President Jimmy Carter an actually meritorious Nobel Peace Prize winner who describes the record of his fellow Nobel laureate the current President in an Op-Ed entitled “A Cruel and Unusual Record“:

MYSTERIOUS CIRCLE-SHAPED OBJECT IN THE BALTIC SEA

This sounds very interesting.

“During my 20-year diving career, including 6000 dives, I have never seen anything like this. Normally stones don’t burn. I can’t explain what we saw, and I went down there to answer questions, but I came up with even more questions “, says Stefan Hogeborn, one of the divers at Ocean X Team.

More details here:

http://www.allvoices.com/contributed-news/12438930-baltic-sea-ufouso-disables-electronic-equipment-mystery-deepens

Hybrid grass linked to Texas cattle deaths

Weird.

See clarification here:

http://cryptogon.com/?p=30142

It's actually a hybrid grass.

DefCon: 20 Years of Hackers, Hijinks and Snooping Feds

Capture the Flag,  a digital version of King of the Hill,  is the core contest at DefCon,  which pits teams of hackers against one another in a battle to gain root on a networked box and fight off adversaries who would unseat them. Teams often work round-the-clock throughout the conference,  never leaving their computers for long.

Guest Post: The Economic Abuse Of Veterans In America | ZeroHedge

Volunteering to join the military has always been a process rife with internal and external conflictions.  A vital aspect of one’s ultimate decision to do so often depends greatly upon the era in which one becomes eligible.  U.S. citizens leaped at the chance to defend their country at the onset of World War II because the enemies were indeed a legitimate and obvious threat to the freedom and sovereignty of all nations.  During Vietnam,  the waters were muddied (at least in the view of millions of citizens),  and many Americans did not see the fight as their own.  The line between our system,  and the enemies we were supposed to despise,  had become progressively more foggy and disjointed.  For any wise and honorable man to go out of his way to risk his life,  the fight must be clearly just,  otherwise,  he may feel that his death will serve no purpose.