May 2013
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Report: Tumblr May Reject Yahoo’s $1.1B... →
Tumblr feels that Yahoo’s $1.1 billion offer as “too low” and view it as “only a first offer”, according to sources close to to acquisition talks. Yahoo may have to significantly increase the offer to close the deal. An acquisition by some tech giant is likely in the cards for Tumblr, though, as sources say the company only has a few months of cash runway left.
… still hope yet, according to...
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To the people complaining that "Yahoo will ruin...
seldo:
I am super bored of hearing this.
Could Yahoo have done a better job of managing Flickr? Absolutely.
In retrospect, if they’d been patient and poured money into it like Facebook did with their own photo-sharing features, Flickr might have been a lot bigger. (Facebook is by far the world’s biggest photo-sharing site, and tagged photos was key to its early growth, something Flickr didn’t...
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“I thought there was a bombing. I smelled smoke and looked outside the window and...”
– Metro North train rider Natalie Sepulveda • Describing the situation she (along with her two-year-old son) experienced immediately in the wake of today’s crash, which has injured 60 people, including five critically. The crash snarled transit around the busy Northeast Corridor, forcing both...
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Yahoo Board to Meet Sunday to Consider $1.1B,... →
seldo:
I for one welcome our new Yahoo overlords.
The most concrete confirmation of what’s about to happen yet: “Sources said that the Silicon Valley Internet giant’s CEO Marissa Mayer has decided that buying Tumblr was going to be ‘the stake in the ground of what her strategy is going forward for Yahoo.’”
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Poll: Benghazi mainly riles up Republicans, may...
41% of Republicans surveyed think Benghazi is the biggest scandal in US history
39%of the aforementioned Republicans do not know what country Benghazi is in source
In the same poll: Voters trust Hillary Clinton on Benghazi more than congressional Republicans by a 10 point margin; a net +18 percent of respondents would rather congress focus on immigration reform than Benghazi; and voters were...
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Tumblr In Talks With Yahoo; Facebook And Microsoft... →
While this is the case (and Facebook and Microsoft are definitely ready to pounce), Yahoo currently has Tumblr negotiations under lock and key, Forbes reports:
A source with knowledge of the Yahoo/Tumblr discussions says they are proceeding rapidly and likely to result in an offer as soon as Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer can get her board’s approval. She is said to favor an outright acquisition rather...
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Yahoo paid billions for a somewhat-Tumblr-like...
$3.6B was the amount Yahoo bought Geocities for back in 1999. Remember Geocities? The Tumblr of the ’90s, complete with customizable pages? It’s still around, right? (via Hacker News) source
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More thoughts on the West, Texas thing
iphisquandary says: Oh come on don’t even pretend this isn’t about race. A fucking Saudi-American guy carrying a RICE COOKER THAT POLICE THOUGHT WAS A BOMB made bigger news than this. We all know he didn’t necessarily do it, but if this guy was of color and was a suspect like a certain other man who had nothing to do with the Boston Marathon bombing, everyone would know his name by now. Let’s not...
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Someone's in trouble. →
evanfleischer:
(Previously.)
Today in purported (but we should point out, unverified) videos of big-city mayors apparently smoking crack on camera.
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Building A Faster Horse →
parislemon:
Farhad Manjoo on the new Square Stand:
Translation: Credit cards will be here for a good long time. This isn’t a novel admission; Dorsey has always said that he doesn’t think plastic will go away anytime soon. But the launch of the Square Stand—a device engineered to improve the credit card experience—shows how deeply Square is betting on credit cards. It’s as if, after building...
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New UN numbers show shocking increase in Syrian...
1.5M refugees have been forced to flee their homes as a result of the civil war in Syria, and the rate that new refugees are registering with the UN is increasing at an alarming rate. It took roughly two years for the first million to register, meaning another 500,000 Syrians have been forced to seek refuge in the last 10 weeks. source
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Dzhokhar Tsarnaev left note in boat explaining... →
Accused Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who was found hiding in a boat days after the blasts, left a handwritten message describing the attack as retribution for US wars in Muslim countries, CBSNews reported on Thursday.
The CBS News report, citing anonymous sources, said that Tsarnaev used a pen to write the message on an interior wall of the boat, where police found him bleeding...
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WaPo's Ezra Klein: The scandals are falling apart →
justinspoliticalcorner:
[the entire article]
H/T: Ezra Klein at Washington Post
We shouldn’t publish full articles unless we have to (say, if the article gets taken down). A couple of key paragraphs is fine. People can click to read the rest. And the folks that don’t want to will just miss out.
You like Ezra Klein as a writer? Don’t take away his traffic. I don’t...
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Maryland governor signs tough gun control law →
Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley on Thursday signed into law one of the United States’ toughest gun control measures, even as opponents vowed to overturn it.
The legislation prompted by the Newtown, Connecticut, school massacre requires handgun buyers to undergo safety training and submit fingerprints to obtain a license.
It also bans the sale of 45 types of assault weapons, which...
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Dozens of injuries, deaths reported after North...
six people died after a mile-wide tornado touched down in Granbury, TX on Wednesday, possibly an EF-4 with sustained winds ranging from 160 - 200 mph, one of several that touched down near Fort Worth last night.
100+ homes were destroyed by the tornadoes, with more than 35 injures reported at this time, officials say the hunt for survivors is now over. At least seven people remain missing at...
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“The most significant differences between those who smoked marijuana and those...”
– The Atlantic’s Lindsay Abrams, reporting on the results of a recent study on the health effects of marijuana. In addition, regular pot smokers were skinnier than those who abstained, “even after adjusting for factors like age, sex, tobacco and alcohol use, and physical activity...
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Here's the resignation memo from Acting Internal... →
Dear Colleagues,
It is with regret that I will be departing from the IRS as my acting assignment ends in early June. This has been an incredibly difficult time for the IRS given the events of the past few days, and there is a strong and immediate need to restore public trust in the nation’s tax agency. I believe the Service will benefit from having a new Acting Commissioner in place during this...
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“Done! Just finished the final mix last night. In two weeks Arrested Development...”
– Arrested Development creator Mitch Hurwitz • Revealing that, after much fanfare, he was unable to create a choose-your-own-adventure setup to the show’s upcoming season, heading towards Netflix shortly. But on the plus side, we’re still getting a new season of Arrested Development!
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Acting IRS Commissioner Steven Miller has resigned... →
President Obama announced minutes ago that, in response to the revelation that the IRS discriminately targeted conservative-leaning groups for scrutiny, he’s asked for and accepted the resignation of Miller, the acting IRS Commissioner. The commissioner at the time of the targeting was Donald Shulman; Miller didn’t assume the post of acting commissioner until November of last year,...
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White House releases emails on Benghazi talking... →
The White House on Wednesday released almost 100 pages of internal emails regarding the talking points that Ambassador Susan Rice and other officials used on Sunday shows following the deadly Benghazi, Libya attack on September 11, 2012.
You can read ‘em here. Meanwhile, the President is going to give a statement on the IRS scandal in 20 minutes.
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Gawker: Police Seize Woman's Camera After She... →
Last Tuesday, Maria Melendez witnessed a half-dozen sheriff’s deputies fatally beating 33-year-old David Sal Silva—hitting him with clubs and kicking him— in Bakersfield, California outside Kern Medical Center. She began to film the scene on her phone, yelling to the cops that she was filming them.
Melendez, who had been visiting her son at the hospital, reported that the deputies beat...
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“Without authorizing the use of force or additional spending, this legislation...”
– Sen. Bob Menendez • Commenting on a bill he introduced in the Senate last week that would create a $250 million transitional fund for the Syrian rebels and post-Assad government that would inevitably follow a toppling of the existing Syrian regime. While the bill may have found new life in the...
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President Obama Calls For Reporter Shield Law Days... →
The Obama administration asked Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) Wednesday morning to reintroduce legislation that would help reporters protect the identity of their sources from federal officials, a White House official told The Huffington Post.
The scope of the bill and how effective it would be remains unclear, however, given prior administration opposition to a “reporter shield” law.
...
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Post-merger American Airlines could lead field in...
$1.1B+in combined baggage fees between US Airways and American Airlines throughout 2012, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation. The two airlines are in the nascent stages of a merger at the moment, after which the resultant American Airlines could claim Delta’s current spot as the airline most bleeding all of us dry on our luggage. source
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A truly gruesome video today has drawn... →
The video itself is far too grisly for us to post here without warning, as it appears to contain a horrifying instance of cannibalism by a commander within the Syrian opposition, the removal and eating of a dead opponent’s heart, while espousing sectarian insults towards Bashar al-Assad. Said Nadim Houry, the Middle East deputy director for Human Rights Watch: “It is not enough for...
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Soldier in sexual assault office accused of abuse... →
The Army says the coordinator of a sexual assault prevention program at Fort Hood, Texas, is under investigation for “abusive sexual contact” and other alleged misconduct. He has been suspended from all duties.
The announcement Wednesday evening came just days after the arrest of the Air Force’s head of sexual assault prevention on charges of groping a woman in a northern...
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“In the circumstances in which bullets are flying like rain and wind, the...”
– Toru Hashimoto, Mayor of Osaka, Japan • Claiming the necessity of Japan’s World War II-era so-called “comfort women,” a collection of 200,000 or so females (many Chinese, South Korean and Indonesian), forced into sex slavery for soldiers. Hashimoto’s statement of apparent...
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“When I compare the RAW file with the prizewinning version I can indeed see that...”
– Digital photography expert Eduard de Kam • Discussing the photo we posted earlier today, which a forensic image analyst suggested ‘Shopped. World Press Photo, after working with independent forensic analysts, says that the photo was retouched in post-production but not manipulated, and as a...
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CNN Blows Huge Hole In GOP Efforts To Prosecute... →
CNN’s Jake Tapper has managed to get his hands on the critical White House email suggested as the proof that the White House was more interested in removing references to possible terrorist attacks in the now infamous Benghazi talking points then they were in telling the truth to the American public.
The actual email, written in the days following the Benghazi attack, reveals something else...
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“It put the American people at risk and that is not hyperbole. Trying to...”
– U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder • Defending the Department of Justice’s decision to collect roughly two months worth of various Associated Press employees’ work and personal phone records as part of a criminal investigation. The DoJ is apparently investigating a leak which occured last... 