links for 2010-08-24

Pakistan has suffered from desperately poor moral leadership, but punishing the helpless and homeless millions of the 2010 floods is the worst possible way to express our rejection of the Pakistani elite and their duplicity and corruption. The poor, hungry, and homeless are not an ISI conspiracy to bilk you of your cash. They are a test of your humanity. Do not follow in the footsteps of the Pakistani elite by failing them.

It was the only balloon the project lost, before or since. 10 days later, a rancher on the Foster ranch found some mysterious wreckage and pushed it under a bush. Then came the West Coast flying saucer scare. The rancher wondered if he'd found a crashed saucer, so he told the sheriff, who called the local air base — Roswell Army Air Field. The intelligence officer, convinced they had a saucer, gave the local press this dramatic story. The wreckage was flown to 8th Army Air Force headquarters at Fort Worth. At Fort Worth, General Ramey brought in his meteorologist, who immediately recognized the materials as parts of a weather balloon and a radar reflector. So the general issued another press release saying there was no saucer, and that was that…