7/16/2020 by Pushkin Industries
Web player: https://podplayer.net/?id=109770566
Episode: https://pdst.fm/e/chtbl.com/track/39E17/traffic.megaphone.fm/CAD3463123798.mp3
Basement laboratories. Mad scientists. Sticky gels, and a bake-off in the desert. The strange story behind Curtis LeMay’s weapon of choice. Part two.
The nutty and horrific story of how nepalm came to be. Unthinkable now but came out of a horrific war.
7/8/2020 by Roman Mars
Web player: https://podplayer.net/?id=109362755
Episode: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/media.blubrry.com/99percentinvisible/dovetail.prxu.org/96/57a15f33-53a2-4025-9caa-66a6d213674f/405_Freedom_House_Abulance_Service_pt01.mp3
One night halfway through a graveyard shift at the hospital, orderly John Moon watched as two young men burst through the doors. They were working desperately to save a dying patient. Maybe today he wouldn’t bat an eye at this scene, but in 1970 nothing about it made sense. The two men weren’t doctors, and they weren’t nurses. And their strange uniforms weren’t hospital issued. Moon was witnessing the birth of a new profession—one that would go on to change the face of emergency medicine. The two men were some of the worlds first paramedics, and, like Moon, they were Black. This is the story of Freedom House Ambulance Service of Pittsburgh. They were the first paramedics and they changed the way we think about emergency medicine.
Did you ever think about who took people to the hospital back in the 1950s before ambulances? It turns out that EMTs are a relatively new invention that came out of the African American community where people who were injured didn’t want to be taken to the hospital in a paddy wagon on a cot.
Researchers say police should not be using tear gas or pepper spray against protesters: They make people cough droplets and damage the airways in ways that will make people sicker from COVID-19.
In a pair of historic rulings on Thursday, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected President Trump's claim of absolute immunity under the law. The vote was 7 to 2 in cases involving grand jury and congressional subpoenas for Trump's pre-presidential financial records.
"Starting annual pay for an NYPD officer is only $42,000 but it quickly soars to $85,000 after five and a half years on the force. With abundant opportunities for overtime, that can boost annual pay to over $100,000 per year. Higher-ranking members of the force fare even better. Officers also qualify for full medical coverage, full prescription, vision and dental coverage, unlimited sick pay and 26 days of paid vacation per year.But it’s the pension plan that provides the golden handcuffs that bind any would-be rebel to his or her job. NYPD officers can retire after 22 years on the force and receive half their annual pay every year for the rest of their lives. The pension formula is based in part on average pay during the final three or five years on the force when an officer will try to rack up as muchovertime as they can get.Mass protest movements like Occupy and Black Lives Matter annoy the fuck out of cops — the long hours, the disrespect from many demonstrators, their refusal to follow orders or be in awe of authority. But truth be told, mass protest movements are also a windfall for police officers in the final stages of their careers.As Joe Biden would say, here’s the deal. Most NYPD officers retire in their mid-40s. If they live to be 80, they will collect close to $2 million in pension payments on top of the roughly $2 million they earn during their active-duty years. That’s $3.5 to $4 million in lifetime earnings, plus all the non-cash benefits for 22 years of work. For the white-shirted commanders who love to throw protesters around like rag dolls, it’s far more.Would you make the trade-off? Twenty-two of the best years of your life spent as a cop in return for a lifetime of economic security? For many, the terms are irresistible. In 2019, the NYPD had 36,038 active officers on payroll plus another 53,441 retirees and beneficiaries.Think of it as affirmative action for bullies; a Scandanavian-style welfare state for a warrior caste deeply committed to its mission — suppressing the lower classes to keep the city safe and profitable for market-rate real estate and its occupants."
Liberal democracy has enjoyed much better days. Vladimir Putin has entrenched authoritarian rule and is firmly in charge of a resurgent Russia. In global influence, China may have surpassed the United States, and Chinese president Xi Jinping is now empowered to remain in office indefinitely. In light of recent turns toward authoritarianism in Turkey, Poland, Hungary, and the Philippines, there is widespread talk of a “democratic recession.” In the United States, President Donald Trump may not be sufficiently committed to constitutional principles of democratic government.