A US drone attack killed the leader of the Afghan Taliban. I expect it will make little difference to the situation in Afghanistan, except for political repercussions.

What ultimate effect it will have is imponderable. But the main point is that you can't defeat an insurgency with substantial popular support by killing its leaders. They will appoint new leaders.

Plants have a kind of intelligence that operates at a slow timescale, so that humans usually don't notice except through careful study.

Occasionally people do notice. There is a kind of tea from Taiwan which is made only from leaves that an insect has started to chew on, because those leaves taste different.

Although plants make complex decisions, no evidence has been presented that any plant engages in conscious thought. Without conscious thought, I don't think an organism is entitled to the right to life.

Isn't it silly how people find it hard to call it a crime to wipe out a species unless the individual members of it have rights? Wiping out a species is a wrong of a different kind, a crime against the world, regardless of whether the individuals of that species have rights as individuals.

The current round of tax increases and privatization imposed on Greece include plans for additional automatic cuts when (the banksters say "if") the current round causes so much contraction that Greece still doesn't have enough surplus.

In Any Humanitarian Crisis, Educating Children Must Be Part of the Response.

After the US government persecuted internal whistleblowers such as Thomas Drake, it also persecuted John Crane, an official who tried to insist on treating whistleblowers according to the law, Crane believes that the office which was supposed to protect confidential whistleblowers instead helped persecute Drake.