The Inimitable Tiff

Feb 01

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Jan 31

PALAEOBLOG: Published This Day: Darwin’s Other Book

Awesome.

Fist-Bumper-In-Chief: Talking Points Memo has a collection of the best President Obama fist-bump photos.

[Photo: Pete Souza/White House]

Jan 30

futurejournalismproject:

A group calling itself the Syrian Electronic Army hacked the Al Jazeera English Web site yesterday with messages supporting president Bashar al-Assad

Via Ars Technica:

Targeting the news organization’s “Syria Live Blog,” which has been providing ongoing coverage of the Arab League’s observer mission to Syria and developments in the ongoing unrest in the country, the hacker group calling itself the Syrian Electronic Army posted pro-Assad and pro-Syrian government images to the site…

…On their own site, the Syrian Electronic Army announced the “code re-penetration” of the site by a “professional Syrian battalion” of hackers, denouncing Al Jazeera for broadcasting “false and fabricated news” to “ignite sedition” among the people of Syria and achieve the goals of “Washington and Tel Aviv.”

Image: Pro Assad image posted to Al Jazeera English’s Syria Live Blog. Via Ars Technica.

Jan 29

(via crookedindifference)

Syrian Troops Try to Retake Damascus Suburbs - NYTimes.com -

The assault on the suburbs seemed to be a sign of the growing presence of dissident soldiers closer to Damascus, and of the government’s rising concern about the situation. Although the tightly controlled capital has been relatively quiet since the uprising began, its outskirts have been the scenes of intense protests, and army defectors have become more visible and active in the past few months.

The military has responded with a withering assault in the Damascus suburbs to stamp out the resistance, leading to a spike in violence has killed nearly 100 people since Thursday.

America’s Boxing Women Aim for the Olympics - Video Feature - NYTimes.com

My former teammate and sparring partner Queen Underwood is in the trials as well as the ladies profiled in this NYT Magazine piece. Having been a recipient of Queen’s punches for years I’d bet on here were it not amateur boxing and the Olympic trials.

Arab League Suspends Its Monitoring in Syria - NYTimes.com -

Sad. Also, nice slideshow feature at the top of the story.

Jan 28

CORPORATE PERSONHOOD

arewepayingattention:

Somehow “judicial activism” is associated with liberal judges, but conservatives were the ones who created ex nihilo a whole new life form, the corporate “fictional person” — and then gave these “persons” the freedom to impose their interests on real people like you and me. Pay attention to where the threats to democracy really come from.

PALAEOBLOG: New Theory Explains Life, Universe, Everything! Really!

This one’s going to take me time to chew through.

theatlantic:

Elite Wall Street Donations Jumped 700% in the Last 20 Years

Banks “frankly own the place,” Sen. Dick Durbin famously said of Washington during the debate over financial regulation in 2010. And when it comes to total contributions for big donors, you can see what he’s talking about in this chart. (FIRE = the Finance, Insurance and Real Estate sector) Read more.

[Image: Sunlight Foundation/Highcharts]

Jan 27

Archivist challenges Kremlin in Wallenberg saga -

infoneer-pulse:

A former senior Russian archive official says he saw a file that could shed light on Holocaust hero Raoul Wallenberg’s fate — challenging the insistence of Russia’s KGB successor agency that it has no documents regarding the man who saved tens of thousands of Jews in Hungary before disappearing into the hands of Soviet secret police.

Anatoly Prokopenko, 78, told The Associated Press that in 1991 he saw a thick dossier containing numerous references to Wallenberg that suggested he was being spied upon by a Russian aristocrat working for Soviet intelligence. Russian officials later said the file didn’t exist, in line with blanket denials of having information on Wallenberg.

“That file is extremely interesting, because it could allow us to determine the reasons behind his arrest,” Prokopenko said, while acknowledging he had only a few minutes to flip through hundreds of pages of documents.

» via Yahoo! News

israelfacts:

Iron shoes are pictured on the bank of the Danube on January 27, 2012, marking the Holocaust in Hungary. Hundreds of Hungarian Jews had to leave their shoes on the bank before they were shot into the river by Hungarian militaimen during the World War II. The United Nations declared in 2005 the Holocaust Memorial Day on January 27 to commemorate the 6 million Jews and other victims murdered by the Nazis. (Getty Images)

(via fotojournalismus)

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