Any doubts about whether the NRA is feeling the pressure of an increasingly powerful gun violence prevention movement can be quelled by reading Wayne LaPierre’s latest keynote rant. While never the most coherent thinker, this year’s stream-of-warped-consciousness epic hate poem, showed LaPierre giving up all pretense and appealing directly to his audience’s worst fears, deepest prejudices and festering anger. Here’s why:
For years the National Rifle Association has maintained its stranglehold on national politics by convincing politicians that it is politically invincible. But now there is fresh evidence — actual numbers — that show the NRA is increasingly feeling the heat of Americans’ shifting attitudes about gun violence prevention. This is a big deal.
The numbers appear in a tax form known as a 990, which charitable organizations must file every year to let the Internal Revenue Service know what they are up to. The NRA’s 990 for the year 2014 just appeared online at Guidestar, where all such filings are made public.
The invincibility myth has always been just that […]
Minuteman III Launch Control, Oscar Zero Missile Alert Facility at the Ronald Reagan Minuteman Missile Site near Cooperstown, North Dakota.
When you hear the phrase “floppy disk,” your mind (assuming you’re of a certain age) flashes back to those ubiquitous 3.5-inch versions that were AOL’s Johnny Appleseed in the mid-1990s, spreading “You’ve Got Mail!” across the land. Only the aged among us can recollect what came before: the behemoth 5.25-inch models that owned the (tiny computer universe of the) 1980s.
That’s why it might give you pause to learn that the Pentagon—that epitome of cutting-edge technology and the inventor of the Internet—still uses gargantuan 8-inch floppy disks, fossils from the 1970s, to help operate the nation’s nuclear weapons.
“Legacy IT investments across the federal government are becoming increasingly obsolete,” the Government Accounting Office said in a report released Wednesday. “For instance, [the Department of] Defense is still using 8-inch floppy disks in a legacy system that coordinates the operational functions of the United States’ nuclear forces.”
For […]
Tiny hairs detect the electric field and communicate with the nervous system
Credit: ALAMY
Bees are drawn to flowers by an invisible electric field as well as their bright colours, a new study has shown.
Scientists at the University of Bristol have found the insects use tiny vibrating hairs to sense the static electricity and guide them into the sources of pollen.
Hairs move rapidly in response to the electric fields, sending messages to the nervous system.
Dr Gregory Sutton, from the university’s School of Biological Sciences, said the bees’ hair danced in response to the electric fields in the same way human hair reacts when a balloon is held to the head.
“A lot of insects have similar body […]
Unhappy couple in bed
Sexual intimacy and pleasure are some of humanity’s most cherished experiences. The so-called “best things in life” include natural beauty, fine dining, the arts, thrilling adventures, creative pursuits and community service. But love and orgasms are among the few peak experiences that are equally available to rich and poor, equally sweet to those whose lives are going according to plan and to many whose dreams are in pieces.
Religious conservatives think that these treasured dimensions of the human experience should be available to only a privileged few people whose lives fit their model: male-dominated, monogamous, heterosexual pairs who have pledged love and contractual marriage for life. Some true believers—especially those in thrall to the Protestant Quiverfull Movement or the Vatican—would further limit sexual privileges even within hetero state-licensed, church-sanctified marriages to only couples who are open to intimacy producing a pregnancy and a child. Take your pick: it’s either reproductive roulette or no sex—although you might be able to game God by tracking female fertility and then bumping like […]
ISIS militants stand with a captured American Humvee, given to the Iraqi Army and captured by ISIS, June 19, 2014.
Credit: AP
KITCHENER, ONTARIO — The United States has long billed itself as “the land of the free and the home of the brave.” This fairytale receives credence within the country’s own borders, as its lemming-like citizens place hand on heart, look at the waving flag, and wipe tears from their eyes.
Yet a good story doesn’t often play quite as well when cultures and traditions are different, and for countries that have a free press or that have been victimized by the U.S. — and their name is legion — the lofty statements about liberty and equality that U.S. spokespeople are forever mouthing don’t hold much water.
From the Philippines, Mexico, Chile, Brazil and Nicaragua, right through Korea, Vietnam and Grenada, to Iraq, Syria, Yemen and Palestine […]
