“…Air Force documents offer a remarkable portrait of modern drone warfare, one rarely found in a decade of generally triumphalist or awestruck press accounts that seldom mention the limitations of drones, much less their mission failures….”

http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175489/tomgram%3A_nick_turse%2C_drone_disasters_/#more

“…Some of our top choices could very well have an immediate effect on our lives. The impact of others may not be felt for years. Some discoveries may vanish altogether. We’ll just have to see how things turn out in the years ahead. But no matter what, 2011 held big surprises in science and technology….”

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=top-10-science-stories-2011

“…Let us ponder what the coming year will bring for someone who must now seek reelection as a mere mortal….”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/obama-can-a-messiah-win-twice/2011/12/30/gIQAhwWyUP_story.html?tid=pm_opinions_pop

“…Facts don’t necessarily have the power to change our minds. In fact, quite the opposite. In a series of studies in 2005 and 2006, researchers at the University of Michigan found that when misinformed people, particularly political partisans, were exposed to corrected facts in news stories, they rarely changed their minds….”

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2010/07/11/how_facts_backfire/

“…The Occupy Wall Street camp in New York spawned others across the world before it was broken up this week, just short of its two-month anniversary. But, as those who bedded down in Zuccotti Park on the first night explain, it very nearly didn’t happen….”

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-15779008

“…It has used Americans’ savings to make wildly risky trades that fed bankers’ profits. It has not abided by free-market practices. It has traded complex securities in secret; it is rife with conflicts of interest; it has charged monopoly fees to underwrite securities, advise on takeovers, manage portfolios and make loans. Wall Street has paid its workers to take risks and hasn’t penalized them when they were wrong. And, judging by the findings of a Senate investigative committee and the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, Wall Street has bought favorable credit ratings from Standard & Poor’s and Moody’s. Its practices have driven speculation through the roof in every decade since the 1980s, always ending with a crash….”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/does-america-need-wall-street/2011/11/16/gIQAcQmHYN_story.html?tid=pm_opinions_pop

“…Only a soft regime change can end the pervasive corruption at the heart of our political system, in which corporate money wins elections, drafts laws and trumps citizen desires. Only the plural voices of everyday Americans, the 99 percent, have the capacity to wake up the 1 percent to their greedy, self-serving ways, and to dismantle the global casino in which $1.3 trillion worth of derivatives, credit default swaps and other financial instruments slosh around every day without a hint of concern or regard for the millions of lives that such speculation can destroy….”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/why-occupy-wall-street-will-keep-up-the-fight/2011/11/17/gIQAn5RJZN_story.html?hpid=z1

“…Muammar Qaddafi’s death — in volatile, still unexplained circumstances, at the hands of Libyan rebels in Surt—is the second in a series of a new genre of “before your eyes” news events that could be called Deaths of Former Dictators….”

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2011/10/muammar-qaddafi-picturing-the-dead.html

“…Democrat Elizabeth Warren has raised more than $3 million and rocketed to the top of the polls, making it seem all but inevitable that she will get the nod to square off against Republican U.S. Sen. Scott Brown in 2012, but four Democrats who remain in the primary fight say they’re not giving up just yet….”

http://news.bostonherald.com/news/politics/view/20111021elizabeth_warren_not_sure_thing_rival_dems_say/srvc=home&position=4

“…Americans are very capable of exalting immigration in the past even while fearing it in the future. But we need to move away from that paradox in order to manage immigration in the present…”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/from-ellis-island-to-an-electrified-fence-immigration-myths-that-hold-us-back/2011/10/19/gIQAGrRC4L_story.html

Ralph was regarded as a crackpot by most immunologists for a few decades, but he built his case patiently, based on something unusual he personally observed under the microscope. He then pursued that first paradox – something there that shouldn’t be, with persistence, courage and faith. Eventually he was proven right. His once-radical work is now accepted and built upon by many others. After 40 years or so, he wound up getting recognized with the ultimate science prize, the Nobel.

However, Ralph was not the only one in that long saga with courage and faith. It’s a group effort. Still, one brave and faithful figure was pivotal, and none of it would have happened without him….

During his long, struggling ‘crackpot period’, Ralph was faithfully supported by his own mentor and ‘scientific father’, Zan Cohn.

That’s the way it is in science: it’s a heritage passed from generation to generation. May we all have faith that the ideals we share will be handed down in a similar way….

“…Ralph Steinman died days before it was announced that he was to share the Nobel Prize for Medicine. His work had been part of an unorthodox experiment to save his life…”

PERSONAL NOTE: I got my PhD in Ralph’s lab from 1990-95. He was my thesis advisor and teacher. I feel incredibly lucky. BTW: Ralph was regarded as a crackpot by the most immunologists for a few decades, but wound up getting recognized the Nobel.
During his long, struggling ‘crackpot period’, he was faithfully supported by his own mentor and ‘scientific father’, Zan Cohn. That’s the way it is in science: it’s a heritage passed from generation to generation. May we all have faith that the ideals we share will be handed down in a similar way….

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-15156342

“…Mac enthusiasts adopted from both Eastern and Western religions a social form that emphasized personal spirituality as well as communal experience. The faith of Mac devotees is reflected and strengthened by their efforts in promoting their computer of choice…”

“…While observers have focused on China’s internal politics, however, an important and worrisome change has been taking place outside its borders: Beijing increasingly appears to be thwarting democracy in surrounding countries….”

http://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2011/09/24/the-long-arm-china/Sa98kIg9gpOMkxGLdHImFI/story.html

In his new book, award-winning biologist and author Nathan Wolfe examines the origins and spread of viruses around the globe…

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-viral-storm&WT.mc_id=SA_DD_20111011

“…The declaration heard ’round the Internet world came from Elizabeth Warren, the consumer champion running for the U.S. Senate in Massachusetts. Warren argued that “there is nobody in this country who got rich on his own,” that thriving entrepreneurs move their goods “on the roads the rest of us paid for” and hire workers “the rest of us paid to educate.” …”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/from-elizabeth-warren-the-proper-case-for-liberalism/2011/10/09/gIQA5ZZeYL_story.html

“…THEIR YOUTH is what registers most powerfully. The “Occupy Wall Street’’ protests in New York — and similar events in Boston, Chicago, Seattle, Los Angeles, and numerous other American cities — drew participants from across generations. Yet most organizers, spokespeople, and tent-pitching tweeters seem to be in their 20s….”

“…THE CHURCH of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has habitually been regarded by outsiders as esoteric, cultish, and deeply suspect. Once, Mormons were physically attacked for their beliefs. Now, the religion is treated more respectfully, although still with an edge of condescension….”

http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2011/08/07/the-mormon-arrival/ovfVTe8GyfzmYsrcIgA3TO/story.xml

“… In 1936, three New York journalists set out to travel around the world using “established means” of transportation available to anyone who could afford the ticket. The point of the contest was to demonstrate that air travel was accessible to all and was rapidly shrinking the world…”

http://www.airspacemag.com/history-of-flight/Moments-and-Milestones-Once-Around.html

“…Steven Pinker’s new book argues that the modern world is more peaceful, not less…”

http://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2011/09/24/the-decline-violence/aqRdrPvKmGYlfMDPh579RN/story.xml

“…Since the mid-1990s, infection rates in gay men have been rising, especially in minority communities where homosexuality often still carries a powerful stigma….”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/06/AR2008080602940.html

“…A startling find at one of the world’s foremost laboratories that a subatomic particle seemed to move faster than the speed of light has scientists around the world rethinking Albert Einstein and one of the foundations of physics….”

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EU_BREAKING_LIGHT_SPEED?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

“…Henry David Thoreau’s great subject – in “Walden’’ and “Civil Disobedience’’ and just about everything he wrote …was our relationship, as human beings – physically, morally, spiritually, politically – to the world in which we live, which is to say, to everything, both human and wild…”

http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/editorials/2011/09/21/why-walden-matters-now/YnGQpAmgw3PFza9XAOxLfM/story.xml

“…The death penalty is a barbaric anachronism, a crude instrument not of justice but of revenge. Most countries banished it long ago. This country should banish it now….”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/with-the-death-penalty-probably-isnt-good-enough/2011/09/22/gIQAqZwOoK_story.html

“…Whatever the Turks, Egyptians, or Americans do, whatever symbolic satisfaction the Palestinian Authority may get at the U.N., there’s always the Occupation and there — take it from someone just back from a summer living in the West Bank — Israel isn’t losing. It’s winning the battle, at least the one that means the most to Palestinians and Israelis, the one for control over every square foot of ground….”

http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175444/