They don’t undo the dominant narrative. But they’re not exactly minor revisions, either: The White House backed away Monday evening from key details in its narrative about the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, including claims by senior U.S. officials that the Al Qaeda leader had a weapon and may have fired it during a […]
Eli Sanders
Eli Sanders is The Stranger's associate editor. His book, "While the City Slept," was a finalist for the Washington State Book Award and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize. He once did this and once won this, but he also once crashed his bike into a parked car while on his way to a staff meeting, never mind this, so… His website, which probably hasn't been updated in a while, is www.elisanders.net.
Posted inNews
The Path of the Plume
A model created by the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization and obtained by the New York Times. The chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Gregory B. Jaczko, said Monday that the plume posed no danger to the United States. “You just aren’t going to have any radiological material that, by the time it traveled […]
Posted inHorrors
Will Radioactive Particles from the Leaking Reactor Reach the Pacific Northwest?
Dr. Jeff Masters at the Weather Underground (a meteorology site) ran a NOAA computer model to answer the question. The answer is yes—but, not in quantities to be of concern for human health. Dr. Masters links to a more refined model by the Austrian weather service, also showing the spread of the materials across Japan […]
Posted inHistory
Japan in 1923
The earthquake hit in the early afternoon off the coast of Honshu, Japan’s most populous island, triggering unprecedented destruction. Ninety percent of the houses in a score of seaside towns collapsed in seconds. Passenger trains fell off railway bridges and plunged into the sea. A few minutes later, a 35-foot-high tsunami rolled in, sweeping away […]
Posted inNews
Tsunami Propagation Animation
From the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Center for Tsunami Research, an animation of what’s happened, what’s still happening, and what will happen soon in the Pacific: ALSO: Proof that NOAA’s not kidding: One dead, three swept out to sea in Crescent City, CA.
Posted inMedia
Sullivan Jumps to the Daily Beast
The man of more than a million monthly uniques (at least one or two of them coming from all the linkage he gets on this here blog) is leaving the Atlantic and going to Tina Brown‘s Daily Beast. It’s another reminder, says Ben Smith, that Andrew Sullivan helped to create not just the political blog […]
Posted inPolitics
A Win for Obama’s Health Care Law
The score in the courts is now 3 – 2 in favor of Obama’s health care law, with federal judges appointed by Democrats having upheld the law’s constitutionality and federal judges appointed by Republicans having found it unconstitutional. The latest ruling came yesterday: WASHINGTON — A federal judge on Tuesday threw out a lawsuit claiming […]
Posted inNews
The Best Return on All Those Billions in U.S. Military Aid to Egypt: This Moment
It’s still early, but now that Mubarak is out it’s worth remembering: The Egyptian military—which has behaved with incredible restraint in the lead-up to this coup, and is now saying its coup is only in the service of hastening the democratic reforms the protesters demand—this military would not be the institution it is today without […]
Posted inNews
Egyptians for Mubarak? Not Exactly
Nicholas Kristof says the pro-Mubarak Egyptians clashing with the anti-Mubarak masses today in Tahrir square don’t feel like a grassroots phenomenon: In my area of Tahrir, the thugs were armed with machetes, straight razors, clubs and stones. And they all had the same chants, the same slogans and the same hostility to journalists. They clearly […]
Posted inNews
Just Words? As You Watch the Events in Egypt, Remember Obama’s Cairo Speech
Regarding today’s enormous, revolutionary protests in Egypt: I keep asking myself, “What will Obama do?” Plenty of others have noted the bind he’s in—caught between the words of his Cairo speech and the Devil-You-Know deals the U.S. has been striking with Mubarak for decades. Today, he’s given the clearest indication so far that he’s standing […]