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The sham “terrorism expert” industry
Glenn Greenwald - Salon

Shortly prior to the start of the London Olympics, there was an outburst of hysteria over the failure to provide sufficient security against Terrorism, but as Harvard Professor Stephen Walt noted yesterday in Foreign Policy, this was all driven, as usual, by severe exaggerations of the threat: “Well, surprise, surprise. Not only was there no terrorist attack, the Games themselves came off rather well.” Walt then urges this lesson be learned:

[W]e continue to over-react to the “terrorist threat.” Here I recommend you read John Mueller and Mark G. Stewart’s The Terrorism Delusion: America’s Overwrought Response to September 11, in the latest issue of International Security. Mueller and Stewart analyze 50 cases of supposed “Islamic terrorist plots” against the United States, and show how virtually all of the perpetrators were (in their words) “incompetent, ineffective, unintelligent, idiotic, ignorant, unorganized, misguided, muddled, amateurish, dopey, unrealistic, moronic, irrational and foolish.” They quote former Glenn Carle, former deputy national intelligence officer for transnational threats saying “we must see jihadists for the small, lethal, disjointed and miserable opponents that they are,” noting further that al Qaeda’s “capabilities are far inferior to its desires.”

In the next paragraph, Walt essentially makes clear why this lesson will not be learned: namely, because there are too many American interests vested in the perpetuation of this irrational fear:

Study: Companies Paid More to CEOs Than in US Tax
ABC News

Twenty-six big U.S. companies paid their CEOs more last year than they paid the federal government in tax, according to a study released Thursday by a liberal-leaning think tank.

The study, by the Institute for Policy Studies, said the companies, including AT&T, Boeing and Citigroup, paid their CEOs an average of $20.4 million last year while paying little or no federal tax on ample profits, according to regulatory filings.

On average, the 26 companies generated net income of more than $1 billion in the U.S., the study said.

Facebook Freeing 60% More Shares Seen Weighing on Stock
BloombergBusinessweek

Facebook Inc. (FB) is freeing up 271.1 million of its shares today, boosting by 60 percent the number that could be traded and adding to concerns that have weighed on the stock since the company’s initial public offering.

Tobacco health warnings around the world
CNN

Health officials around the world hailed the decision by Australia's high court, which stubbed out claims by tobacco companies that the packaging of cigarettes without branding was unconstitutional.

Germany reopens Facebook facial recognition
inquiry, Facebook defends its legal status
The Verge

Germany has reopened its investigation of Facebook's facial recognition database after failed attempts to persuade the company to revise its policies, according to the New York Times. The dispute centers around Facebook's requirement that users opt-out of its facial recognition database, rather than opting-in as mandated by European Union law. Facebook suspended the practice for new users in July while it worked with EU officials, though it maintains that its regional headquarters in Dublin adheres to Ireland's data privacy laws, having implemented changes outlined by an audit last year.

Most massive and luminous galaxy cluster identified
Detection may confirm long-held theory.
MIT News

As vast as the Milky Way may seem, our sprawling galaxy is but a speck next to the largest structures in the universe: galaxy clusters — collections of hundreds to thousands of galaxies bound together by gravity. At the heart of most galaxy clusters sit massive old galaxies, within which only a few new stars are born each year.

Now a multi-institution team led by MIT researchers has identified a galaxy cluster seven billion light-years away that dwarfs most known clusters, churning out a dazzling 740 new stars per year in the central galaxy. The galaxy cluster is among the most massive and most luminous in the universe. While scientists have formally catalogued the cluster by the name SPT-CLJ2344-4243, the MIT-led group has a more informal moniker: the Phoenix cluster, named after the constellation in which it resides.

Has Google Earth Revealed Lost Egyptian Pyramids?
History.com

If only Indiana Jones had a web browser and Google. Angela Micol claims that she may have discovered two lost Egyptian pyramid complexes, but not with the traditional tools of archaeology. Instead of spade and sifting screen, this armchair archaeologist used Google Earth to make her potential find from 5,000 miles away.