December 11, 2017 – Bridge Agents

Asia’s Other Nuclear Standoff

December 11, 2017 Bridge Agents

(FPIF) – With the world focused on the scary possibility of war on the Korean Peninsula, not many people paid much attention to a series of naval exercises this past July in the Malacca Strait, a 550-mile long passage between Sumatra and Malaysia through which pass over 50,000 ships a year. With President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un exchanging threats and insults, why would the media bother with something innocuously labeled “Malabar 17”? They should have. Malabar 17 brought together the U.S., Japanese, and Indian navies to practice…

How a group of California nuns challenged the Catholic Church

December 11, 2017 Bridge Agents

California, United States (Conversation) California in the 1960s was the epicenter for spiritual experimentation. Indian gurus and New Age prophets, Jesus freaks and Scientologists all found followings in the Golden State. But among those looking for personal and social transformation, the unlikeliest seekers may have been a small community of Roman Catholic religious: the Immaculate Heart Sisters. Theirs was, as I discovered in my research on the order, a compelling spiritual saga, culminating in a showdown with the Catholic hierarchy. The story of that conflict spotlights the impact of the…

Meet the Special Interests Keeping Marijuana Criminalized

December 11, 2017 Bridge Agents

United States (FEE) – Americans overwhelmingly agree that marijuana should be legal, so why isn’t it? So glad you asked… In this era of political polarization, when Americans seem to agree on absolutely nothing, let me reassure you. We overwhelmingly agree that cannabis should be legal. 1 in 5 Americans have (state) legal access, 1 in 2 have experimented with it, and more than 1 in 10 smoke regularly. Southern California yuppies are publicly winning prizes for growing the same plant that landed Georgia teenagers in prison. Half of states allow at least limited use, and a few attract elite cannabis tourism….

The FCC Still Doesn’t Know How the Internet Works

December 11, 2017 Bridge Agents Bridge Agent, Congress, EFF, FCC, Featured, greed, Internet, Justin King, net neutrality, Technology, The Fifth Column

United States (EFF) – Earlier this year nearly 200 Internet engineers and computer scientists sent a letter to the FCC that explained facts about the structure, history, and evolving nature of the Internet. The reasons we laid out in that letter for writing it then still apply to the draft now: Based on certain questions the FCC asks in the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM), we are concerned that the FCC (or at least Chairman Pai and the authors of the NPRM) appears to lack a fundamental understanding of what the Internet’s…