@NYTFridge plenty of people just want a job or a break. don’t project.
via Gabriel Snyder’s Stellar faves http://twitter.com/blam/status/289513538140123136
Police Say Ostensibly Harmless Bomb ‘Hippie’ Planned to Blow Up Washington Square Arch
Since two “hippie types” were arrested two weeks ago for keeping a small arsenal of weapons and bomb-making supplies in their Greenwich Village apartment, we’ve heard conflicting opinions on how seriously we should take their interest in explosives. One source called the Dalton and Harvard grads, “well-to-do junkies, not terrorists,” and Aaron Greene told the Post that he’s just an “outdoorsman” who planned to go out into the country and set off some “experimental fireworks.” Former bouncer Max Fish countered that the case should be taken more seriously since Green did time for stabbing him with a butcher knife. After hearing the latest details in the case, we have to side with Fish. NYPD spokesman Paul Browne says Greene recently told acquaintances that he was “making bombs” to “blow up” Washington Arch. It also seems he was starting to move past the planning stage; he was spotted sprinkling a white powder on the sidewalk inside Washington Square Park and hitting it with a rock, setting off an explosion.
Investigators believe the powder was the highly explosive chemical HMTD, which was found in the apartment Greene shares with Morgan Gliedman, leading police to evacuate nearby buildings. Police sources also say they found letters believed to be written by Greene that suggest he wasn’t all about peace and love, or even innocently blowing things up in the woods. One letter repeats the word “kill” and the phrase “kill them all,” and is signed the lightning-bolt symbol associated with Hitler’s SS.
On Wednesday, police raided the Orangeburg, New York home of correction officer Daniel Whittaker based on Greene’s claim that he’d given some of his weapons to “a friend in law enforcement.” They found several legally owned rifles. “They searched my house for no reason. I was charged with no crime,†said Whittaker. “There was no person charged in this area. All (the authorities) did was come and destroy my stuff.†Police say Greene is the “the focus of the investigation,” and Gliedman, who gave birth to their daughter while in custody, has been released on bail into a drug treatment facility.
Read more posts by Margaret Hartmann
Filed Under:
crimes and misdemeanors
via Daily Intelligencer http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2013/01/bomb-hippie-planned-to-blow-up-washington-arch.html
Battle Lines Drawn Over Herbalife
William A. Ackman and Daniel S. Loeb became business rivals on Wednesday, with hundreds of millions of dollars in play over Herbalife. | Diminished profits have forced Morgan Stanley to cut back its trading desk, raising questions about the firm. | Jacob J. Lew, President Obama’s chief of staff and former budget director, has been tapped to be the secretary of the Treasury. | Amid criticism, the board of the American International Group decided not to join a lawsuit against the federal government.
via NYT > Most Recent Headlines http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/01/10/battle-lines-drawn-over-herbalife/
The Latest Debt-Ceiling Proposal: Issue IOU’s
The $1 trillion platinum coin seems too wacky; the 14th amendment too risky. But could IOU’s be the solution to an impasse on raising the nation’s borrowing limit?
Yes, and President Obama should publicly adopt the idea, Edward Kleinbard, a University of Southern California law professor and former chief of staff to Congress’s Joint Committee on Taxation, argues in a Thursday New York Times op-ed. If lawmakers can’t reach an agreement before the nation hits its debt ceiling–which could happen as soon as next month–then Obama should have a backup plan of issuing IOU’s in place, Kleinbard argues.Â
“[Obama] should threaten to issue scrip—’registered warrants’—to existing claims holders (other than those who own actual government debt) in lieu of money. Recipients of these I.O.U.’s could include federal employees, defense contractors, Medicare service providers, Social Security recipients and others.â€
Kleinbard is hardly the first to propose the idea. Slate’s Matt Yglesias suggested it in early December. And New York Times Op-Ed columnist and Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman argued for such IOU’s on Monday, though he called them “Moral Obligation Coupons.†In Krugman and Kleinbard, the idea has found two prominent proponents.
Without congressional intervention, the government is expected to reach its debt ceiling in the second half of February, the Bipartisan Policy Center predicts. The only thing preventing a devastating national default, which could have ripple effects around the globe, are a handful of hail-mary proposals:
via Homepage http://www.nationaljournal.com/economy/the-latest-debt-ceiling-proposal-issue-iou-s-20130110
Hagel may regret lack of Senate pals
Hagel’s way of doing business has been proven unpopular.
via POLITICO – TOP Stories http://www.politico.com/story/2013/01/hagel-may-regret-not-having-made-more-senate-pals-85984.html
Paragraph launches an aggregated lit mag for the iPad age
Paragraph, a New York-based startup that provides a range of digital author services like apps, released the first issue of its new weekly short story iPad magazine, Paragraph Shorts, on Thursday.
Paragraph Shorts is a little like a Flipboard for short stories, but rather than an algorithm, it uses humans to find short stories — in text, video and audio formats — across the web (from outlets like The New Yorker, The Paris Review and The Moth), then aggregates them and distributes them through a free iPad app. When a Paragraph Shorts reader flips his or her iPad to landscape mode, social features appear, including the Twitter and Facebook streams of the stories’ authors and the magazines they were published in.
Paragraph Shorts aims to add value through curation, introducing readers to authors and publications they might not have known about otherwise. “By curating the best short stories, and offering them to people who might not have known they existed, Paragraph will create a link between great literary magazines and readers who are eager to kill fifteen minutes in a quality manner,†Lorin Stein, editor of The Paris Review, said in a statement.
Of course, killing fifteen minutes reading a short story through an app doesn’t necessarily extend to a subscription to the publication it came from. But all the stories that Paragraph features are already free online, so the app’s main benefit to the stories’ publishers is to drive traffic to their websites and to increase social media around them. The company is also considering exclusive content at some point.
Paragraph founder Ziv Navoth previously ran marketing and partnerships at AOL. Paragraph is self-funded by Navoth and his partner, Edo Segal, who also run two other businesses: Enhanced ebook and app platform Holopad and ebook distribution platform Convertabook.com.
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via paidContent http://paidcontent.org/2013/01/10/paragraph-launches-an-aggregated-lit-mag-for-the-ipad-age/
And this… RT @DwayneBrayESPN Doctors: Seau’s brain tests positive for CTE http://t.co/phO9gKMC
And this… RT @DwayneBrayESPN Doctors: Seau’s brain tests positive for CTE http://t.co/phO9gKMC
via Gabriel Snyder’s Stellar faves http://twitter.com/AdamSchefter/status/289349955829776384
Whoa. RT @nytjim: Passengers on Qantas flight spot python on plane’s wing in mid-flight. http://t.co/K9IAa4ot http://t.co/brm7I1bA
Whoa. RT @nytjim: Passengers on Qantas flight spot python on plane’s wing in mid-flight. http://t.co/K9IAa4ot http://t.co/brm7I1bA
via Gabriel Snyder’s Stellar faves http://twitter.com/dashb0t/status/289350277675491330
Good Times
From The Oregonian, chip on their shoulder gun owners ascend new heights of awesome …
Police say two men openly carried assault rifles in the Portland’s Sellwood area to demonstrate their 2nd amendment rights and “educate the public”.
Steven M. Boyce, of Gresham, and Warren R. Drouin, of Medford, both 22, were spotted by officers about 1:50 p.m. Wednesday near Southeast 7th Avenue and Spokane Street and have concealed handgun licenses, said Sgt. Pete Simpson, a Portland Police Bureau spokesman. They were not arrested because the rifles remained on their backs, he added.
Officers warned the duo that the sight of their rifles would generate 911 calls, but neither man seemed concerned, Simpson said. No shots were fired.
In addition to numerous 911 calls, the two sent at least one school into lockdown. But among the many other hilarious and horrific things about this story is the one thing that’s right out there in plain site, namely, that this was perfectly legal. Boyce and Drouin both have up to date concealed carry licenses and the assault rifles are legal weapons. So there was nothing the police could do.
Now, even most people who support the idea that basically any law-abiding citizen should be able to get a license to carry around a handgun probably get that this is not a great idea. After all, for other things beside carrying weapons there are disturbing the peace ordinances that give police some ability to intervene if people are doing normally legal things in a way that creates havoc or public disturbances.
But guns, in many cases, seem to have more rights than you or I.
[Photo Credit: Shutterstock]
via Talking Points Memo http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2013/01/good_times_5.php?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Talking-Points-Memo+%28Talking+Points+Memo%3A+by+Joshua+Micah+Marshall%29
Shows for Those Who Think ‘The New Normal’ Is Too Normal
Several local filmmakers are creating web-only, fictionalized accounts of their experiences in the hope that they can add variety to the gay characters already onscreen.
via WSJ.com: Weekend Journal http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324581504578231791009267594.html?mod=rss_Weekend_Journal