Opinions and Tidbits

The internet is full of many things you can look at that will help you procrastinate.

[textsfromhillaryclinton]

Original image by Diana Walker for Time.

[hydnelllum]

Inspired by this post, I give to you: Text’s from Matrim Cauthon’s iPhone.

I’m half asleep, so this is not that good as it can be really.

[elan-morin-tedronai]

Logain, Androl & timeline

Spoilers for, eh, Crossroads of Twilight to Towers of Midnight. I think.

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[raiilaura]

The way I understood it (though I haven't gotten that far in my current reread yet) was that Logain went back to the BT right after the Sea Folk meeting, probably because Rand was really pissing him off, you know treating him like an errand boy and fly-swatter. So by my estimates, that gives him a good three months at the BT before the start of AMoL. Plenty of time to raise Androl to Dedicated and reestablish ties to his group. And as for Algarin/Emarin I always thought he just went on his own. Cadsuane left, he wasn't playing host, and he figured, well why not see if I can?

[raiilaura]

Quebec’s War on English: Language Politics Intensify in Canadian Province time.com

To live in Que­bec is to become accus­tomed to daily reminders that French in the Cana­di­an province is the most reg­u­lat­ed lan­guage in the world. Try, as I did recent­ly, to shop at Anthro­polo­gie online and you’ll come up empty-handed. The…

[raiilaura]

Olga Khazan, theatlantic.com

[raiilaura]

"I have no doubt that he [Chavez] will return alongside Jesus Christ and the Mahdi [the Hidden Imam] to establish peace and justice in the world," Ahmadinejad wrote in an emotional condolence message posted on his personal website. The Mahdi is a revered figure among Shi'ite Muslims, many of whom believe he will return to save humanity.  

[billaba]

[raiilaura]

Gun Control, Yemen-Style Tik Root, theatlantic.com

The war-torn Arab country is second only to the U.S. in gun ownership -- and second to none in weapons culture.

SANA'A, YEMEN -- With shops lin­ing the main road and hard bar­gain­ing mer­chants abound­ing, Jihana appears to be your aver­age Yem…

[raiilaura]

Matt Peckham, time.com

You say puh-tay-tow, I say puh-tah-tow, but how did our ancestors use language millennia ago? Typically you’d ask a linguist, but manually reconstructing protolanguages — hypothetical early languages from which extant ones evolved — can be a lengt…

[raiilaura]

This is awful... Mona Eltahawy did not even get a reason for why she was arrested. The actions here - not to mention the posters themselves - show that bigotry is alive an well in America.

[raiilaura]

Foreign investment, international aid agreements and other economic stimuli to plump up central banks and ailing economies in the region had become a popular trend since the countries - namely Egypt, Libya and Tunisia – began their transitional phases. But excitement over new economic prospects that the countries had been touting has come to an abrupt standstill...

[raiilaura]

You just can't make this stuff up:

Dr Sarhan Al Meheini, deputy director of the Police Sciences Academy in Sharjah, believes audio files called "binaural beats" should be dealt with like cannabis and ecstasy.

Binaural beats are generally used to reach altered states of consciousness, for meditation or alertness or to aid sleep, but many producers claim the technology can mimic the effect of drugs on the brain.

There is no scientific evidence for their claims and reviews are mixed at best, but Dr Al Meheini believes "digital drugs" pose a risk to society.

"It's important that we warn the public and start a campaign to make people aware of it," he said.

[raiilaura]

One small step...

[raiilaura]

The account underlines the confusion that reigned during the assault by protesters and heavily armed gunmen that overwhelmed the consulate in Benghazi last Tuesday night, killing four Americans, including Stevens, who died from smoke inhalation soon after he was found. U.S. officials are still trying to piece together how the top American diplomat in Libya got separated from others as staffers were evacuated, suffocating in what is believed to be a consulate safe-room.

The Libyans who found him expressed frustration that there was no ambulance and no first aid on hand, leaving him to be slung over a man’s shoulder to be carried to a car.

Hmmm... makes it less likely that it was a planned 9/11 anniversary attack and more likely a result of the protests over the Anti-Islamic film. The whole situation is very weird. Still, this account, if true, gives me some hope for Libya's future.

[raiilaura]

In recent months, Iran's nuclear, oil and natural-gas industries have been the subject of intensifying sanctions from the international community. Now the country wants to develop a sector in which it has more leeway: renewables.

At a recent Tehran exhibition, local companies, some of which are doing business with European companies, displayed domestically made solar panels and wind turbines. "Fossil fuels will run out, but wind will always be available and no one can put sanctions on it," says Ali Shirazi Tabar, a mechanical expert at Mapna Group one of Iran's largest power contractors.

[raiilaura]

An interesting follow-up to the article I posted a couple of days ago, in which the author of the op-ed "Nuclear Mullahs" responds to the wide array of reader comments.

EDIT: The original reader comments can also be viewed here.

[raiilaura]

King Abdullah II on Wednesday accused Israel of disrupting Jordan's nuclear energy plans and warned of sectarian violence spilling across the border from Syria, in a wide-ranging interview with AFP.

The king, whose country needs atomic energy to meet its energy needs and power water desalination plants, said "strong opposition to Jordan's nuclear energy programme is coming from Israel."

He also warned of a spillover of the Syrian turmoil into its neighbours, saying the risk is "looming closer."

"When we started going down the road of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, we approached some highly responsible countries to work with us. And pretty soon we realised that Israel was putting pressure on those countries to disrupt any cooperation with us," the king added.

[...]

Jordan, which imports 95 percent of its energy needs, is struggling to find alternatives to Egyptian gas, which normally covers 80 percent of power production.

Since 2011, the gas pipeline from Egypt to both Israel and Jordan has been attacked 14 times, with a consequent disruption of supplies.

With 92 percent of its territory desert, Jordan is one of the world's 10 driest countries and wants atomic energy to power desalination plants to overcome a crippling water shortage.

"Nuclear energy will be the cheapest reliable way to desalinate water," the king said.