Reading Obama’s Iran Speech

Phyllis Bennis The Nation
The usual opponents—in Congress, in Israel and the pro-Israel lobbies—are already on the move, challenging the new opening.

Supreme Court to Inspect Neutrality Agreements

Jenny Brown Labor Notes
The case the Supreme Court will hear involves a South Florida greyhound track, now known as Mardi Gras Gaming, where UNITE HERE reached an agreement with the employer in 2004. The company would allow union representatives to speak to workers in non-work areas during non-work times and would provide the union with contact information for employees. It would also “remain neutral” about unionization.

North Carolina Was Almost Hiroshima

This is an excerpt from "Always/Never: The Quest for Nuclear Safety, Control, and Survivability," a documentary made by the Sandia National Laboratories in 2010, categorized as OFFICIAL USE ONLY, and never released to the public. The film was produced, directed, and edited by Dan Curry.

In this sequence, Sandia weapon designers discuss how a 4 megaton hydrogen bomb almost detonated in North Carolina on January 23, 1961, when a B-52 bomber broke apart midair, three days after the inauguration of President John F. Kennedy.

A single switch---the arm/safe switch in the cockpit--prevented a nuclear detonation that would have destroyed much of North Carolina and blanketed the east coast with lethal radioactive fallout. But as the Sandia engineers note in the film, that type of switch failed on numerous occasions and was subsequently replaced. What they don't say in the film is that stray electricity from loose wires in the airplane, as it broke apart, could also have fully armed the hydrogen bomb and detonated it.

The details of this nuclear weapon accident and of many others can be found in the book, Command and Control, by Eric Schlosser.
 

Report Exposes Right-Wing Tag Team Plot Against Pensions

Isaiah J. Poole ourfuture.org
Conservative activists are manufacturing the perception of a public pension crisis in order to both slash modest retiree benefits and preserve expensive corporate subsidies and tax breaks.

Imagine

The official video of the most popular song of John Lennon's solo career. Its simple language and graceful harmonies proclaim a powerful vision of all humankind organizing itself around moral principles. See also this Emmy-winning animation based on a brief interview of Lennon by a 14-year-old fan.