Read me >>> sharing illuminating journalism

[ericpmoss]

These guys are pretty cool -- father and son walking to the south pole with only renewables for energy. The father was the first to walk to both poles, 30 years ago. Their training involves, among other things, hiking in the Sierra Nevada dragging a tire roped to the waist. It's about more than just 'look at me, I'm strong'.

Expedition Antarctica

[vertical_doug]

When a U.S. citizen heard he was on his own country’s drone target list, he wasn’t sure he believed it. After five near-misses, he does – and is suing the United States to contest his own execution – Rolling Stone

[ides1056]

^^^ good read

so is this:Barack Obama Still Doesn’t Understand Donald Trump - The Atlantic

[ides1056]

When Your Child Is a Psychopath - The Atlantic

"The best physiological indicator of which young people will become violent criminals as adults is a low resting heart rate, says Adrian Raine of the University of Pennsylvania. Longitudinal studies that followed thousands of men in Sweden, the U.K., and Brazil all point to this biological anomaly. “We think that low heart rate reflects a lack of fear, and a lack of fear could predispose someone to committing fearless criminal-violence acts,” Raine says. Or perhaps there is an “optimal level of physiological arousal,” and psychopathic people seek out stimulation to increase their heart rate to normal."

um, wtf?

[caleb]

Here's an interesting piece from Bloomberg about the buildup of corporate junk bonds: Titans of Junk: Behind the Debt Binge That Now Threatens Markets

While many are household names like Dell Technologies Inc. and Tesla Inc., others are privately held entities that avoid the scrutiny of the S&P 500 crowd—companies such as specialty-chemicals maker Avantor Inc. and IT firm BMC Software Inc.

But chances are that anyone who socked away cash into a retirement account during the past five years has lent them money. Investors have parked trillions of dollars in mutual funds and exchange-traded funds that buy junk bonds. Pension funds in Canada have started leveraged-finance lending operations. Insurance companies have helped bankroll leveraged buyouts. And, in an echo of the subprime mortgage bubble a decade ago, investors from Sydney to Seattle snapped up hundreds of billions of dollars in AAA rated securities known as collateralized loan obligations that are actually backed by the debt of junk-rated companies.

The central banks that enabled the borrowing will now have to manage a precarious dance: weaning markets off their stimulus without triggering a stampede from one of the most crowded trades in a generation. That could culminate in a full-blown crisis.

And yet the Chair of the Fed is floating policies that will result in even more easy money sloshing around.

This is America.

[caleb]

Chair of the Fed

Oops, I meant the Secretary of the Treasury.

[ides1056]

he's the one with his finger in the dike

[caleb]

he's the one with his finger in the dike

Yeah, I fully expect that this administration is headed toward a repeat of the Burns-Nixon dynamic.

[holliscx]

Fun hourlong podcast on a feather thief with fly tying and fishing content. Nerd out whether or not you're a fly angler it's a great listen and illuminating form of journalism.

The Feather Heist - This American Life

[stev0]

Found this to be illuminating. Ignore the headline. Ignore that it's HuffPo. Everything You Know About Obesity Is Wrong

[prcrstn8]

September 28th, 1960 - Ted Williams' last at-bat, as seen by John Updike.

Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu | The New Yorker

[72gmc]

^^^ i remember stepping into the office at Fenway years ago and seeing the first several sentences, maybe more, of updike's prose painted on the wall. I told the secretary how much I liked that. She smiled at me like I was a wierdo, which I was.

[ericpmoss]

My parents worked here in the early 50's. Thankfully they weren't in the hot zones...

Cancer at Los Alamos

[rwsaunders]

Pittsburgh Quarterly Magazine - A Day of Reflection

I worked with the author many moons ago as a young turn supervisor at LTV’s Pittsburgh Works and Ken went on to earn a PhD in history...smart gent and a helluva a millwright too. He’s published several works about the steel mills and railroads in the area and he and my Dad became very good friends.

It was pretty cool to open the email this morning and see a piece by someone that you know.

[ericpmoss]

Here's something you won't hear on CNN (or pretty much anywhere else, for that matter). It turns out Daniel Ellsberg wasn't just a leaker of the Pentagon papers, but one of the guys whose job was to plan nuclear war. So he's a historian of the effort, and it looks like a relatively small number of people locked us into a very profitable Cold War by withholding information from scientists and from Truman. Oh joy.

Hitler Wouldn't Risk Doomsday, but the US Did

[vertical_doug]

Here's something you won't hear on CNN (or pretty much anywhere else, for that matter). It turns out Daniel Ellsberg wasn't just a leaker of the Pentagon papers, but one of the guys whose job was to plan nuclear war. So he's a historian of the effort, and it looks like a relatively small number of people locked us into a very profitable Cold War by withholding information from scientists and from Truman. Oh joy.

Hitler Wouldn't Risk Doomsday, but the US Did

I tried reading the article, but honestly think there is a lot of disinformation there. More importantly, you have to look at what people like Werner Heisenberg were doing. Once fission was discovered by the Germans, it was inevitable that science would develop a bomb. The reality of the US Manhattan Project was the scale of resources just accelerated the research. So given the inevitability of the bomb, the US was probably about the best choice to get it first. If this had not happened, we most likely live under a single atomic dictatorship.

Luckily for us, our president's were Truman and Eisenhower and not Curtis LeMay.

[ides1056]

I am with you on that.

[Scott G.]

Luckily for us, our president's were Truman and Eisenhower and not Curtis LeMay.

From the Ellsbergs book, The Doomsday Machine., the book is very worthwhile, as is the "Command & Control"
Ellsberg worked for the Bland Corporation, and had a planning role, also an overall
view of the US nuclear posture that was unusual.

Ellsberg and a colleague went to see "Dr. Strangelove" when it came out.

Colleagues reaction to the movie "We just saw a documentary"

[htwoopup]

I am not sure if this belongs here or if it belongs in the “be cognizant” thread.

But, to me, it belongs somewhere because in addition to being good reporting and well written it frightens me...

U.S. Law Enforcement Failed to See the Threat of White Nationalism. Now They Don’t Know How to Stop It. - The New York Times

[prcrstn8]

Modern fairy tales, one heart-warming, the other a bit more chilly:

The Imagined Story Behind Leonard Cohen’s ‘Suzanne’ - The New York Times

5 Men, a Sack of Beer and a Forest With a Magical Well - The New York Times