After hearing our show about moments of death, filmmaker Will Hoffman went out in search of moments of life. What follows is what he found. What is a moment? From the RadioLab Blog at WNYC, [via]
posted by localhuman on Sep 2, 2009 - 21 comments

London Bombings had nothing to do with Al Qaeda - The official Government report into the July 7th bombings in London has concluded that the attacks were carried out on "a shoestring budget" and "with no direct support from al Qaeda", according to an article published in The Observer on Sunday. They instead were organized through "terror sites" on the internet. This is apparently not good enough for the Conservative opposition. "I find that very hard to believe," said Tory homeland security spokesman Patrick Mercer. The lack of connection further reinforces ideas that Al Qaeda is nowhere near as widespread and organized as we are often led to believe.
posted by Acey on Apr 9, 2006 - 45 comments

Update on the killing of the innocent Brazilian man by London police at Stockwell station. A special report by the Observer reveals some of the key elements emerging from the ongoing investigation by the Independent Police Complaints Commission. Jean Charles de Menezes "wasn't wearing a heavy jacket. He used his card to get into the station. He didn't vault the barrier. And now police say there are no CCTV pictures to reveal the truth." So now the inquiry will have to rely exclusively on eyewitnesses accounts. It appears the man they saw vaulting the barrier was one of the armed officers in plain clothes, while de Menezes "simply walked towards the platform unchallenged". The plainclothes armed unit that shot de Menezes was not the same team that had been following him from his London flat: "there was a delay in calling an armed team to arrest de Menezes, which meant he had already entered the station by the time the officers arrived". Also, it appears that once inside the station, the armed officers had no radio contact with police on the outside. As new details emerge, more questions remain unanswered.
(As previously discussed here and here.)
posted by funambulist on Aug 14, 2005 - 87 comments