How the whistleblowing story was broken

The Guardian‘s Ewen MacAskill has a fascinating account of why Edward Snowden chose their paper to release his information rather than a US publication, and how the whole thing went down. The US media missed getting this scoop because it has developed a reputation for being highly solicitous of the needs of the US government, often consulting with them before publishing stories, and even withholding news at the government’s request. One well-known case is what resulted in Snowden going to Glenn Greenwald. [Read more…]

The satirists weigh in on the whistleblowing story

As could have been easily predicted, both The Daily Show and The Colbert Report had bits on the Snowden affair and they promise more in the days to come. This was Jon Oliver’s first day as fill-in anchor for Jon Stewart for the summer and he did a pretty good job handling a big story. As he said in a different clip, the revelations of the NSA monitoring all electronic and phone communications would be making the Amish feel pretty smug right now, if only they had any idea what was going on. [Read more…]

Bad news from Russia

States that are embracing modernity tend to be moving in the direction of greater acceptance of equal rights for the LGBT community. But Russia is clearly going in the other direction. By a vote of 436-0, the Russian Duma has passed an anti-gay bill that bans “propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations”. It seems likely that it will pass the upper house and be signed into law by Russian president Vladimir Putin. [Read more…]

The fascinating reactions to whistleblowing

It has been fascinating to observe the reactions to the Edward Snowden whistleblowing, There has clearly been an immediate groundswell of popular support for Snowden among ordinary people who see him as a young person who had the courage of his convictions to risk his entire future to reveal government wrongdoing. There are already over 60,000 signatures on a White House petition calling Snowden a “national hero” and that he “should be immediately issued a full, free, and absolute pardon for any crimes he has committed or may have committed related to blowing the whistle on secret NSA surveillance programs.” Of course this is not going to happen but it must be encouraging for Snowden to know that so many people support him. [Read more…]

Is this the new way to launch ships?

Whenever I have seen a ship being launched in the past, it has always slid into the water stern first and it is usually pretty smooth and graceful. In this video, the ship was launched sideways and went into the water like a diver’s belly flop, splashing water over a vast area that not only soaked spectators who tried to run away but sent debris flying dangerously toward them. It is a wonder no one was hurt. For a moment I thought that the ship had actually capsized. [Read more…]