Ruby Ridge Ruby Ridge was the site of a deadly confrontation and siege in northern Idaho in 1992 between Randy Weaver, his family, and his friend Kevin Harris and agents of the United States Marshals Service (USMS) and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). The events resulted in the death of Weaver's son Sammy, his wife Vicki, and Deputy U.S. Marshal William Francis Degan. At the subsequent federal criminal trial of Weaver and Harris, Weaver's attorney Gerry Spence made accusations of "criminal wrongdoing" against every agency involved in the incident: the FBI, the USMS, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF), and the United States Attorney's Office (USAO) for Idaho. At the completion of the trial, the Department of Justice's Office of Professional Responsibility formed a Ruby Ridge Task Force to investigate Spence's charges. The 1994 task force report was released in redacted form by Lexis Counsel Connect, an information service for attorneys. Development[edit] ATF involvement[edit]
Caffeinated 'Vomit Drink' Nauseated North America's First City Caffeine-loaded black drinks apparently dominated the heartland of America earlier than once thought — a beverage neither coffee nor cola, but instead brewed from holly leaves, researchers say. The ancient people may have downed the brew before ritual vomiting as part of purification ceremonies, the scientists added. The discovery was made after investigating artifacts from Cahokia, "North America's first city," researcher Thomas Emerson, the director of the Illinois State Archaeological Survey, told LiveScience. Cahokia existed near the confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers from about 1050 to 1350 in what is now in St. Louis, East St. Louis and the surrounding five counties, and inspired short-lived settlements as far away as Wisconsin. The pre-Columbian settlement at Cahokia was the largest city in North America north of Mexico, with as many as 20,000 people living there at its peak. Brew beakers "We're not sure when Native Americans stopped using black drink," Emerson said.
Scientists Peg Anthropocene to First Farmers 99 Shares Share Tweet Email A new analysis of the fossil record shows that a deep pattern in nature remained the same for 300 million years. “When early humans started farming and became dominant in the terrestrial landscape, we see this dramatic restructuring of plant and animal communities,” said University of Vermont biologist Nicholas Gotelli, an expert on statistics and the senior author on the new study. In the hunt for the beginning of the much-debated “Anthropocene” — a supposed new geologic era defined by human influence of the planet — the new research suggests a need to look back farther in time than the arrival of human-caused climate change, atomic weapons, urbanization or the industrial revolution. “This tells us that humans have been having a massive effect on the environment for a very long time,” said S. Examining thousands of pairs of species, the scientists looked to see how often a particular pair of plant or animal species was found within the same community.
Reaganism and the rise of the carceral state In the moment of Black Lives Matter, with public awareness of mass incarceration and lethal force by police reaching new heights, it’s important to look back on the racial dimension of what I call “the Reagan era” and how that politics led us to where we are now. Today’s carceral state has its roots in the “war on crime” that took hold in America in the 1980s. That “war” was led by the political forces that I associate with Reaganism, a conservative political formation that generally favored a rollback of state power. All those who care about racial equality of a certain age are likely to remember the 1980s as a bleak time for people of color and for African Americans especially. While African American political power was growing in the city, at least by some measures, Ronald Reagan and the broader conservative movement he led were often openly hostile to urban America and African Americans. Amid this political context, the “war on crime” took hold.
Stranger than Strangelove: how the US planned for nuclear war in the 1950s Those who have written about the nuclear Cold War remain grateful to Stanley Kubrick for giving us the satirical 1964 film Dr Strangelove which captures the madness that swept the world for 40 years. The name Strangelove may be overused but the United States has now released a secret file that really does justify the sobriquet: “Stranger than Strangelove”. Almost anodyne in title, Atomic Weapons Requirements Study for 1959 is a truly shocking document, revealing the scale of the holocaust that would have been unleashed in a nuclear war. But a little context first. Back in 2006, the journalist Michael Dobbs filed requests for the declassification of many Pentagon Cold War documents. Meanwhile, Strategic Air Command (SAC) wanted a 60-megaton bomb – a weapon with the equivalent destructive power of over 4,000 Hiroshima devices. Nightmare scenario According to Burr, as far as can be told, no comparable document has ever been declassified for any period of Cold War history. Overkill
Old Photographs of Blizzards Show The Eternal Misery–And Majesty–of Winter A snowstorm in Boston, c. 1930, captured by news photographer Leslie Jones. (Photo: Courtesy of the Boston Public Library/Leslie Jones Collection) On Valentine’s Day in 1940, Boston was hit with a colossal blizzard. The snow fell at over an inch per hour, amid gale force winds. Vast snowdrifts disabled the city’s transport network. Photographer Leslie Jones, who worked for the Boston Herald-Traveler from 1917 to 1956, captured much extreme weather during his 39 year tenure in Boston, including the Valentine’s Day storm. Similarly, photographers for the Bain News Service, one of the earliest photo agencies, ventured out into the blizzard of January, 1910 with unwieldy equipment to capture a snow plow pushing its way through a New York City street. Snow plow during a New York blizzard, photographed by Bain News Service on January 15, 1910. Police officer helps woman through blinding snow during a 1920 Boston blizzard. A windy winter's day in Boston.
Salem Witch Trials Execution Site Found, And It's Behind A Walgreens Long-Hidden Details Reveal Cruelty of 1972 Munich Attackers Photo In September 1992, two Israeli widows went to the home of their lawyer. When the women arrived, the lawyer told them that he had received some photographs during his recent trip to Munich but that he did not think they should view them. When they insisted, he urged them to let him call a doctor who could be present when they did. Ilana Romano and Ankie Spitzer, whose husbands were among the Israeli athletes held hostage and killed by Palestinian terrorists at the 1972 Olympics in Munich, rejected that request, too. The attack at the Olympic Village stands as one of sports’ most horrifying episodes. The treatment of the hostages has long been a subject of speculation, but a more vivid — and disturbing — account of the attack is emerging. Among the most jarring details are these: The Israeli Olympic team members were beaten and, in at least one case, castrated. “What they did is that they cut off his genitals through his underwear and abused him,” Ms. Ms. Ms. Mr. According to Ms.
The Reagan Administration’s Unearthed Response to the AIDS Crisis Is C A new short film, When AIDS Was Funny, unearths never-before-heard audio reaction to the escalating AIDS crisis. One of the most prominent stains on the reputation of the much-mythologized Reagan administration was its response, or lack of response, to the AIDS crisis as it began to ravage American cities in the early and mid-1980s. President Reagan famously (though, not famously enough) didn’t himself publicly mention AIDS until 1985, when more than 5,000 people, most of them gay men, had already been killed by the disease. Filmmaker Scott Calonico’s new documentary short, When AIDS Was Funny, exclusively debuting on VF.com, shows how the Reagan administration reacted to the mounting problem in chilling fashion. What Calonico has compiled, juxtaposing the deeply troubling audio with images of AIDS patients at Seattle’s Bailey-Boushay House in the 1990s, is an infuriating summation of the Reagan administration’s fatal inaction in confronting a generation-defining tragedy.
Turkey-NATO Crisis Sets The Scene For New European ‘EU Army’ | Desultory Heroics By Patrick Henningsen Source: 21st Century Wire They say there are no coincidences in politics and foreign affairs. Less than 72 hours after Turkey shot down a Russian fighter inside of Syrian airspace, moves are already afoot to increase the role of Europe in Syria. Germany has now joined the party this week by revealing its intention to deploy ground troops in the fight against ISIS. Britain is not far behind either, as David Cameron intensifies his lobbying efforts to get his country into the war in Syria. Is this part of a defacto NATO action now, or NATO by fiat? There is much more going on here than meets the eye. For all intents and purposes, NATO is already in. France Aside from giving the state license to unleash a new level of domestic Police State at home, more importantly, the Paris Attacks gave France an immediate “official” entry into the Syria War. United States Great Britain So what’s Cameron’s rush to get deeper into the Syrian side of the conflict? Germany Turkey 1. 2. 3. 4.
We still think like ancient Romans: “The clash between the demands of homeland security and rights of the individual? We haven’t solved that” Cambridge University classics scholar, outspoken feminist, slayer of Internet trolls — Mary Beard is a genuine heroine in the United Kingdom. Her new book, “SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome” begins with a dusty village on the Tiber, debunks Romulus and Remus, looks closely at Cicero, moves through the period of growth and conquest, spends a chapter on the empire’s early heyday under Augustus, touches down on the weirdness of Nero and Caligula, and quits before things get really bad. The book’s cryptic title – “the senate and people of Rome” – should not scare off readers interested in a smart, accessible, argumentative history written with great clarity. “In some ways to explore the ancient Rome from the 21st century is rather like walking on a tightrope, a very careful balancing act,” she writes. Salon spoke to Beard from her home in Cambridge, England. You seem especially interested in misconceptions about Rome – scholarly and otherwise. So it is a bit of a balancing act I try to do.
The Israel-Palestine conflict: a 10-minute history You'll see here that there are two mostly distinct chapters to this conflict: first, the Israel-Arab conflict, and second, the smaller but much tougher Israel-Palestine conflict. That first chapter begins not with religion but with two secular nationalist causes that collided: Arab independence movements following the end of colonialism, and Zionism, in which long-persecuted Jews sought a nation of their own in their historic homeland. This collision, at its most basic level, was about two groups of people who saw the same piece of land as rightfully theirs. The world tried to solve this problem in 1947 with a United Nations plan to divide British-ruled Palestine into two distinct countries. In 1967, Israel fought the second of what would be three major Arab-Israeli wars and, in the process, occupied the two Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza. This would become the second chapter: the struggle between Palestinians and Israelis.
How Humans Went From Hissing Like Geese To Flipping The Bird Disaffected teens in Berlin carry on a storied tradition. (Photo: Sascha Kohlmann/Flickr) It usually takes two hands to type out a message. But there's one digit that, flying solo, can get more across than a whole screed: the middle one, a.k.a The Finger, a.k.a The Bird. If the intent behind the gesture is viscerally obvious, the name isn’t. According to etiquette historian Roger E. The young punks of Ancient Greece used it to rage against stodgy teachers and overblown orators. In the 2nd century B.C. the philosopher Diogenes–pictured here in a portrait by Jean-Léon Gérôme–insulted the famous orator Demosthenes by sticking up his middle finger and saying “there goes the demagogue of Athens.” The Romans called it digitus impudicus, or “the insulting finger.” Meanwhile, rowdy crowds were perfecting a louder, more communal sign of aggression: angry avian noises. A goose demonstrates why his species was tapped to represent cross-cultural anger. Babbitt: “Give me the bird!
Watch the Destruction of Pompeii by Mount Vesuvius An ornate Roman fresco has been discovered during archaeological fieldwork for a new office development at 21 Lime Street in London. The fresco, dating from the late 1st Century AD was uncovered 6 metres beneath street level and is one of the earliest surviving examples of frescos in Roman Britain. Although small fragments of Roman wall plaster material have previously been discovered on previous excavations and construction projects, complete collapsed wall paintings are extremely rare. The fresco design is unlike any previously seen in Britain, examples that bare some correlation come from a Roman Villa in Colgne, Germany. The fragile remains, surviving face down measures a width of 2.5 metres and a height of over 1.5 metres and were preserved thanks to a roman building boom in AD100. During this period, buildings were flattened in preparation for the 2nd Forum Basilica construction. “The painting is likely to have decorated a reception room where guests were greeted and entertained.