Guest Thinkers — December 21, 2010

New Section

In Waq al-waq’s continued attempt to bring you a better, sleeker blog I have added a new section entitled aptly: “Sites of Interest.” The first entry is the website of Yemen’s ambassador to Lebanon and former member of parliament for the GPC, Faisal Amin Abu Ra’s. Faisal is a good friend and I wrote about a qat chew at his house for the American Interest back in 2006.

Of immediate interest is his eloquent resignation speech from parliament in which he claimed the government was “drowning in corruption.”

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.

a group of five matches on a pink background.

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.

Up Next

Guest Thinkers

More Guantanamo

Ginny Hill has written a couple of articles over the past few days on Yemen and Guantanamo and al-Qaeda and failed states. The first is at Open Democracy and provides […]