The Drones Come Home

 Drones are going to become a reality for sure.  There are too many practical applications for society, police and governments to ignore.  But despite the probably useful practical applications, certainly this is a technology that's going to get abused.  Say good bye to privacy!

Excerpt:

So far only a dozen police departments, including ones in Miami and Seattle, have applied to the FAA for permits to fly drones. But drone advocates—who generally prefer the term UAV, for unmanned aerial vehicle—say all 18,000 law enforcement agencies in the U.S. are potential customers. They hope UAVs will soon become essential too for agriculture (checking and spraying crops, finding lost cattle), journalism (scoping out public events or celebrity backyards), weather forecasting, traffic control. “The sky’s the limit, pun intended,” says Bill Borgia, an engineer at Lockheed Martin. “Once we get UAVs in the hands of potential users, they’ll think of lots of cool applications.”

READ MORE HERE...
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2013/03/unmanned-flight/horgan-text

CNN DOCUMENTARY ON DRONES...
http://ajarnmike.blogspot.ca/2012/10/44-of-americans-support-domestic-drone.html

Legalize Marijuana and Other Ways U.S.-Mexico Can Win Drug War

 Excerpt: "That doesn’t mean I favor abandoning the fight against los narcos. I’m just saying that if the past seven years have shown us anything, it’s that it doesn’t matter whether Peña Nieto ratchets up that fight (as his predecessor did) or dials it down, or whether Washington pumps more or less aid into it—not as long as police and judicial institutions remain dysfunctional in Mexico and demand for illegal drugs remains insatiable in the U.S. Which is why, if Obama and Peña Nieto are the smart politicos they’ve proven to be, they’ll realize that the two most important developments in the drug war over the past six months took place not during any interdiction operation but on election day last November in the U.S., and on Tuesday, April 30, in Mexico."

Read more here...
http://world.time.com/2013/05/03/how-obama-and-pena-nieto-can-win-the-drug-war/?iid=gs-main-lead

Amazon Vs Amazon

When you see the word "Amazon", what's the first thing that springs to mind – the world's biggest forest, the longest river or the largest internet retailer – and which do you consider most important?

These questions have risen to the fore in an arcane, but hugely important, debate about how to redraw the boundaries of the internet. Brazil and Peru have lodged objections to a bid made by the US e-commerce giant for a prime new piece of cyberspace: ".amazon".

The Seattle-based company has applied for its brand to be a top-level domain name (currently .com), but the South American governments argue this would prevent the use of this internet address for environmental protection, the promotion of indigenous rights and other public interest uses.

Along with dozens of other disputed claims to names including ".patagonia" and ".shangrila", the issue cuts to the heart of debates about the purpose and governance of the internet.

READ MORE HERE...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/apr/25/amazon-domain-name-battle-brazil

Wringing Out Water in Space

Science never ceases to amaze...


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFPvdNbftOY

The Science of Persuasion

Short video highlighting the secrets of persuasion...very interesting.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFdCzN7RYbw

Gordon Ramsay in Vietnam

Great doc on Vietnam's cuisine with Chef Gordon Ramsay...pretty funny and the food looks incredible...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_VMj1xc5rE

Part 3
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-cWTw23FPo

Part 4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5IyXe2WkVM

Inspiring Photo Essays

The Cute Adventures of Oscar the Globetrotting Dog

The Young Girl Who's Best Friends with African Wildlife

New Electrifying Palette Knife Portraits by Françoise Nielly

 

Anonymous Drug War Blogger Speaks for First Time

I wondered for a long time who was making this blog...

Anonymous author of celebrated Blog del Narco speaks for first time about the risks – and reveals she is a woman...

Read more here...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/apr/03/mexico-blog-del-narco-drug-wars

Also check this one out...

Dying to Tell the Truth: Undercover Inside the Mexican Drug War

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/apr/03/mexico-violent-drug-wars-book-excerpt
 

Confronting What We Don't Know About the Korean Crisis

  North Korean soldiers attend military drills in an unknown location in North Korea March 20, 2013.

To make things easy, let's start with what we do know, as a matter of fact.

North Korea has a young (he's 30), untested leader, Kim Jong-un, who has been at the helm for barely a year, following the death of his father Kim Jong-il, a domineering presence. The Korean peninsula is crammed with soldiers and armaments, more so than any other place on the planet. A war would thus be a catastrophe -- no question about it.

There's no way that the United States could stay clear: it has alliance with South Korea and 28,000 troops stationed there.

Ditto for Japan, which hosts some 49,000 U.S. forces (11,000 are offshore) and over 80 American military installations, and would come under immediate attack by North Korea.
North Korea is the weaker side, based on the standard measures of power. The South has a GDP that's close to 40 times the size of the North's and a defense budget larger than the North's entire GDP. Its arsenal is much more advanced than the North's, which consists of Chinese and Soviet weaponry dating back to the 1970s, much of it even older.
The United States is treaty-bound to defend South Korea; North Korea lacks an identical arrangement with China, its principal patron.
Now for what we don't know, which is where the problems begin.

READ MORE HERE...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rajan-menon/fessing-up-to-what-we-don_b_2985651.html?utm_hp_ref=world

What North Korean Attack on South Korea look like...
See full video here. 

See more great photos and articles here...
http://ajarnmike.blogspot.ca/search/label/North%20Korea