Wow. Via Boing Boing, H.P. Albarelli Jr claims the CIA sprayed liquid LSD over the air and spiked the bread supply of Pont-Saint-Esprit, a village in southern France, in 1951. From the Telegraph: One man tried to drown himself, screaming that his belly was being eaten by snakes. An 11-year-old tried to strangle his grandmother. …
Monthly Archives: March 2010
Iran Wrap
I started the discussion on Tuesday night with a sort of mini-argument: four points that I had arrived at over a couple of weeks reading on the subject of Iran, which I figured would get the ball rolling on the evening. Because of the sharp minds in attendance, it was all that was necessary to …
Animal Welfare
I’m avid reader and admirer of Peter Singer, his columns with Project Syndicate (my ex-employer) are well worth reading. This month he used the recent tragic death of a trainer at Sea World by a killer whale to talk about the cruelty of animal parks and circuses. I find myself in total agreement; if I …
The Effectiveness of Sanctions
WNYC carried a story this morning about American companies doing business in Iran. While technically it is illegal under American law for companies to deal with Iran, business successfully lobbied to be allowed to subvert the embargo by using their foreign subsidiaries. This is how, for example, Honeywell is able to sell Iran technology to …
“After Iran Gets the Bomb”
The lead essay in the latest issue of Foreign Affairs starts off with “The Islamic Republic of Iran is determined to become the world’s tenth nuclear power”. It goes on from there to sketch out US options for containment, barely dwelling on the current arguments about whether sanctions will work, whether some military option should …
A US-Iranian Deal
George Friedman of STRATFOR is a prescient voice on global affairs, and as it happens he has just penned an article on Iran, which is timely for our upcoming discussion. What is to become of the standoff between America and Iran? According to Friedman, sanctions cannot be effective against Iran, as the only meaningful one …
The Price of the Inside View
As we were planning our Iran session, Jeremy and I discussed whether we would be able to find someone with direct experience of Iran – well, that is, find someone and get them to accept our invitation – given the difficulties of traveling there. Today the LA Times published a piece about the costs and …