Imagine roaming the world’s largest ocean year after year alone, calling out with the regularity of a metronome, and hearing no response. Such, apparently, is the situation faced by a solitary whale, species unknown, that has been tracked since 1992 in the North Pacific by a classified array of hydrophones used by the Navy to […]
The 52 Hertz Whale
Posted by Ben on December 21, 2004
https://www.swordbilled.com/the-52-hertz-whale/
Not that kind of luck
This would be utterly laughable, if not for the fact that it’s, what’s the word, frightening? Somewhere in the world, there’s a navy blue suitcase with a small pack of explosives tucked in its side pocket. Four days after police at Charles de Gaulle Airport slipped some plastic explosives into a random passenger’s bag as […]
Posted by Ben on December 21, 2004
https://www.swordbilled.com/not-that-kind-of-luck/
We No Wanna Clean Up
Despite minimal oversight, now the Pentagon apparently feels it is too constrained by its existing environmental responsibilities. Lovely. The Pentagon is becoming a cold, calculating beast. Oh, er… Never mind. (truthout: “Pentagon to Jettison Environmental Responsibilities” [December 14, 2004], via Planetizen)
Posted by Ben on December 17, 2004
https://www.swordbilled.com/we-no-wanna-clean-up/
I always hate it when that happens
Three hooded bandits in eastern Australia bungled a would-be robbery when they apparently mistook a restaurant’s sliding door for a swinging one, police said. (AP: “Eatery’s sliding door foils would-be bandits”)
Posted by Ben on December 13, 2004
https://www.swordbilled.com/i-always-hate-it-when-that-happens/
Dead Rich
When you read the SEC filings as regularly as I do, you come across all sorts of crazy names that companies use to describe various payments to top executives. But last week, I stumbled across a new one: a death retention bonus. Retention bonuses, which have become increasingly popular, are theoretically used to keep an […]
Posted by Ben on December 13, 2004
https://www.swordbilled.com/dead-rich/
No kidding?
It wasn’t exactly the perfect getaway vehicle. A man took off on a lawnmower moments after he allegedly threw two Molotov cocktails at his ex-girlfriend’s apartment building, police said. He was arrested Saturday night after a brief, slow-speed chase. (AP: “Lawnmower-Riding Man Captured After Chase” [December 7, 2004])
Posted by Ben on December 9, 2004
https://www.swordbilled.com/no-kidding/
Rundown, In Brief
Prisons are America’s “primary supplier of mental-health services.”1 Make a face. Change it. Craft your new identity. Morphases.2 Dolphins and humans are fairly similar, brain-wise.3 Struwwelpeter/Shockheaded Peter, online.4 Tired of original speech? Cliche Finder to the rescue.5 “I think that it could be done.”6 Send me your brains. Sterling Courier Systems, please.7 They have a […]
Posted by Ben on December 4, 2004
https://www.swordbilled.com/rundown-in-brief/
Caution: Sounder of Boar Ahead
BERLIN (Reuters) – A pack of wild boar wandered onto a German motorway, causing a five-car pileup and leaving one motorist injured and eight of the animals dead, police said on Saturday. The cars on the Dresden-Berlin motorway hit the boar at high speed. One car flipped, injuring the 33-year-old woman driver. (Reuters: “Pack of […]
Posted by Ben on December 1, 2004
https://www.swordbilled.com/caution-sounder-of-boar-ahead/
Bring it all down
Why do you write? What is your main objective? Derrick [Jensen]: My main objective is to bring down civilization. Actually that’s not quite true. My main objective is to live in a world with more wild salmon every year than the year before, more migratory songbirds, more natural forest communities, more fish in the ocean, […]
Posted by Ben on November 27, 2004
https://www.swordbilled.com/bring-it-all-down/
A success story!
A success story, but not the right kind of success story. This one’s a story of successful lobbying by Syngenta, which apparently learned the lessons of bad publicity. Faced with a potential ban on an herbicide it produces (what herbicide is used on 2/3 of corn in the U.S. and 90% of sugarcane), Syngenta spent […]
Posted by Ben on November 20, 2004
https://www.swordbilled.com/a-success-story/