Guest Thinkers — September 26, 2010

Uganda: America’s Pawn?

“In sending troops into Somalia, the Ugandan president is doing Washington’s bidding and endangering his country.” England’s The Guardian assesses U.S. foreign policy.

bigthinkeditor

“The dangers of turning Africa into a front in the ‘war on terror’—much as it was a front in two world wars and a cold war that were not of its making—have been starkly revealed in Uganda following the 11 July bombings that killed 76 people watching the World Cup final in popular nightspots. That atrocity was attributed to Somali al-Shabaab extremists seeking to carry out retribution for the presence in Somalia of Ugandan ‘peacekeeping’ troops. … Bolstering the Somali peacekeeping forces may be good news for US contractors such as DynCorp International, who equip and train the peacekeepers in Somalia with US state department funding. But it is hard to see how it is good for anyone else.”

a computer generated image of a human brain.

Thinking

The great free will debate featuring Michio Kaku and Steven Pinker

Who — or what — really controls your mind?

Building destroyed by the Halifax Explosion. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C.

The Past

The largest accidental explosion of all time

More than a century ago, Halifax suffered an accidental blast one-fifth the size of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

a collage of photos of a man with a hat and a book.

High Culture

6 great books with wildly unreliable narrators

Dive into the twisted truths and concealed realities told by literature’s most unreliable narrators.

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The Well

Signs you’re burned out — and how to bounce back

If you don’t feel better after the weekend, the “burnout paradox” could explain why.

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7 min

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with

Laurie Santos

Starts With A Bang

The trick to instantly identifying JWST images

If you can identify a foreground star, the spike patterns are a dead giveaway as to whether it’s a JWST image or any other observatory.

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