Dive into the archives.
- Happy Leap Day
Although the modern calendar counts a year as 365 days, a complete revolution around the sun takes approximately 365 days and 6 hours. Accordingly, an extra day is accumulated and added to the calendar every four years. That’s called a “Leap Day,” and appears as February 29th every four years.
The original Roman calendar [...]
- Olmert in Tokyo
When foreign heads of state or government make official visits to Japan, as a form of customary greeting, the flags of such state are flown together with the Japanese flag up and down the main streets of Kasumigaseki, the heart of bureaucratic Japan and where Curzon happens to work. Israeli Prime Minister Olmert is [...]
- Behold! The War Tuba!
Here is a strange photo of Emperor Hirohito inspecting some impressive “war tubas” in the 1930s. War tubas were a type of acoustic locator for detecting aircraft that pre-dated radar.
Found randomly via Futility Closet. Isn’t the internet wonderful late at night?
ADDENDUM: Also see Russian war tubas!
- Planning for Doomsday: Agricultural Backup for the Human Race
What would happen if you gave Saudi-style oil money to a northern European country? Instead of palaces to their own vanity and fundamentalist Islamic schools across the globe, what would they spend their money on?
‘Doomsday’ Seed Vault Opens in Arctic
A “doomsday” seed vault built to protect millions of food crops from climate change, wars [...]
- Caught “red” handed!
China Eats Crow Over Faked Photo Of Rare Antelope
Earlier this week, Xinhua, China’s state-run news agency, issued an unusual public apology for publishing a doctored photograph of Tibetan wildlife frolicking near a high-speed train.The deception—uncovered by Chinese Internet users who sniffed out a Photoshop scam in the award-winning picture—has brought on a big debate about [...]
- What if we win in Iraq?
UPDATE: See also this quasi-interview with Kaplan in Canada’s National Post.
Kaplan speaks in the American Interest:
The Iraq war has cost hundreds of billions of dollars and the death of close to 4,000 American troops, plus many more seriously wounded. This is not to mention the death of perhaps 100,000 or more Iraqis (estimates vary wildly). [...]
- How the US military views itself
Foreign Policy magazine teamed up with the Center for a New American Security and conducted a survey to investigate how US soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines perceive the state of their military.
Some of the findings mirror the general consensus in the media: Iraq is breaking the military; America is not particularly ready for a war [...]
- Cyprus Elects Communist President
Interesting international changes going on—just as a leftist pro-unification leader is kicked out in favor of a right-leaning realist in the Republic of Korea, a leftist pro-unification leader is elected in Cyprus.
Cyprus Elects Communist President
NICOSIA, Cyprus, Feb. 24—Communist leader Demetris Christofias won a crucial presidential runoff in Cyprus on Sunday. He pledged to restart moribund [...]
- The Torch Passes
Today, Raúl Castro is expected to officially become President of Cuba. In June 2005, I profiled Raúl as the “likely successor” to Castro when he died or resigned. What do we know about this guy?
That Raúl was destined for this moment is no secret. Fidel long declared that his younger brother should [...]
- Bye bye B-2
A B-2 stealth bomber crashed just after take-off from Andersen Air Force Base on Guam. Luckily the two pilots ejected to safety, but that is more than a billion dollars down the drain and as David Axe points out, nearly 5 percent of the B-2 fleet). The US has 21 20 B-2s in total.
It makes [...]
