interesting things
Maine Governor Paul LePage has apologized for calling the U.S. Internal Revenue Service the “Gestapo” during criticism of President Barack Obama’s healthcare law.
via Yahoo! News – Latest News & Headlines http://news.yahoo.com/maine-governor-lepage-apologizes-gestapo-015023435.html
Bahrain jailed a leading rights activist on Monday for posting a critical jibe about the country’s prime minister on Twitter.
via NYT > Most Recent Headlines http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/09/bahrain-jails-rights-activist-for-twitticism/
APPLE Drops ‘Green’ Certification From Products…
via DrudgeSiren.com – All Stories http://www.drudgesiren.com/allhl.php?id=143881&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+drudgesiren%2FoGpG+%28DrudgeSiren.com+-+All+Stories%29#h143881
via L.A. Times – Entertainment News http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/jacketcopy/2012/07/gabriel-garcia-marquez-unable-to-write-brother-says.html
Opinion: There is a growing phenomenon: the blogification of U.S. legal discourse.
via POLITICO Top Stories http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0712/78205.html
In his introduction to a volume of George Orwell’s diaries, the late Christopher Hitchens dissected one of the 20th century’s finest political minds.
via The Latest from VanityFair.com http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2012/08/christopher-hitchens-george-orwell
After spending $5 billion dollars to develop the Universal Camouflage Pattern (UCP), the US Army is abandoning the grey-green pixelated camouflage because it has routinely failed to hide soldiers from view in nearly every environment it has been tried in, and considers adopting the UCP “a colossal mistake” and a “fiasco”.
Its adoption in 2004 was driven (it is widely believed) by the feeling among Army brass that the US Marine Corps couldn’t be allowed to out-cool the Army with their new MARPAT uniforms, and so the Army had to have cool, hi-tek, futuristic-looking pixels of their own.
While scientific theories about neurology were brought forward as to why pixelation would interact with the human neurology to render a soldier unseeable, the USMC chose pixelation not for its technical characteristics, but because it was easier to print on fabric.
While the search begins for a replacement for the UCP, some soldiers are being issued uniforms in the more traditional (and actually effective) Multicam Pattern. Among the most successful patterns tested was the so-called “Syrian” Camo pattern, itself reminiscent (to some) of the German WWII Marsh Camouflage Pattern
via MetaFilter http://www.metafilter.com/117700/The-Most-Outstanding-Camouflage-5-Billion-Can-Buy
Chris Hughes’s first business venture worked out nicely. As a teenager, he helped start something called Facebook. Within four years, working mostly part-time, Hughes vaulted into the ranks of the stratospherically wealthy. He wasn’t quite 23 years old.
via Style: Culture, Arts, Ideas & More – The Washington Post http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/chris-hughes-once-a-new-media-pioneer-makes-bet-on-old-media-with-new-republic/2012/07/08/gJQA4fY5WW_story.html?wprss=rss_style
Sayed Jalal furrowed his eyebrows in anger as he vowed to avenge the public execution of a woman in front of a large crowd not far from Kabul, brazen violence that spurred shock and sharp condemnation from Afghan authorities and the United States. The Taliban denied involvement in the killing in Parwan province, in which an unnamed woman’s head and body were riddled with bullets at close range in punishment for alleged adultery. Authorities in Kabul directly blamed the Islamist group. “We will take revenge for this. …
via Yahoo! News – Latest News & Headlines http://news.yahoo.com/locals-vow-revenge-afghan-womans-execution-214723263.html
