October 2011
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“As a general matter, it would be entirely lawful for the United States to target...”
– A vague, anonymous U.S. official • Discussing and defending the American role in killing key al-Qaeda figure Anwar al-Awlaki, whose killing was sanctioned in a secret memo put together by the Justice Department. As we pointed out earlier, al-Awlaki was a U.S. citizen, making his assassination very...
September 2011
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“Muffingate still provides a telling illustration of how relatively minor...”
– The Huffington Post’s Sam Stein • Offering a sobering take on the issue of $16 muffins from a story from a couple of weeks ago. Stein’s point: Despite the early coverage of the initial story, based on an infuriating Justice Department report, the follow-up coverage (where Hilton pointed...
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Stock market suckage: A crappy quarter, put to bed...
bad Today was not a good day for the stock market in general, with all three major indexes down more than two percent amid negative economic data from China, which raised fears that another economic slowdown was coming.
worse This is the final day of the quarter on Wall Street, and the results aren’t very good. The S&P, for example, lost more than 14 percent this quarter. Fears of an...
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“When viewers in the UK attempt to watch videos of the protest, they are met with...”
– Paul Watson on YouTube’s new partnership with the UK government over protest videos • The British government is hoping the removal of certain protest images from the popular video sharing website will prevent copycat demonstrations from forming in the future. The British government isn’t...
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Scott Walker's chief of staff resigns at a...
what Scott Walker’s chief of staff, Keith Gilkes, just decided to resign from his post. The timing is suspect due to an investigation over Walker staffers possibly doing political activities on the taxpayer’s dime.
why Gilkes, who says he’s not involved in the “John Doe” investigation, claims that he’s returning to his being a political consultant, but will...
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Someone who had given up on a 2012 campaign a... →
If this person got in, he’d do well. But our assumption is that he doesn’t actually want back in.
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Report: Amazon's Kindle Fire losing money with...
$199 the amount the Amazon Kindle Fire, launched earlier this week, costs
$209.63 the amount the Amazon Kindle Fire’s parts are estimated to cost source
» Loss leader vs. straight-up leader: Amazon knows that the thing that was going to get the Kindle Fire to sell was the price, and it appears that even though the device is going to sell at a $10 loss per unit, they’ll make that back...
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“It is not uncommon for the First Lady to slip out to run an errand, eat at a...”
– Michelle Obama’s communications director, Kristina Schake • Stating the obvious in the wake of the AP getting a photo of her shopping at Target. To which we say: Duh. Do you think she spends all of her time just hanging out at the White House all day? She’d go crazy. Heh. Most people...
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Who's Left in al-Qaeda? →
thepoliticalnotebook:
cheatsheet:
Also, a primer on al Qaeda Chief Anwar-Al Awlaki.
Also killed along with Awlaki: Samir Kahn (also American), who was the editor of Al Qaeda’s English-language magazine, Inspire.
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“When people reach a point when they are in so much pain they just can’t...”
– Ig Nobel Prize-winning scientist Peter Snyder • Describing his team’s findings — that really having to use the bathroom creates an effect on drivers similar to driving drunk or on limited sleep — at the 2011 Ig Nobel Prize awards ceremony Thursday. Snyder’s bladder-busting team (who won...
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California inmates hunger strike en masse … for...
first Roughly 6,600 prisoners went on a hunger strike in California, protesting the rough conditions due to lack of human contact. Officials said they would review their procedures.
then Officials reviewed their procedures, and decided, well, maybe there’s something to this whole prisoner-treatment thing, and said they would make changes.
now They haven’t done enough: Roughly 4,200...
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Flyin' no more: Boeing plant targeted in...
23 people were arrested for selling painkillers such as Oxycontin, or anti-anxiety drugs, at the plant
14 people were arrested for attempting to buy said drugs at the plant in Ridley Park, Pennsylvania source
» More serious due to nature of the job: With the 6,000-strong plant producing such military aircraft as the V-22 Osprey vertical take-off aircraft and the H-47 Chinook helicopter,...
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Remember how the House GOP attempted to go after... →
This is not a repeat of six months ago.
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usualchatter asked: As an additional quip about Amazon's Silk and privacy issues. Amazon's EC2 cloud services already host traffic for countless other websites. Netflix for example, serves up it's content thru Amazon. Many webhosts lease out space to customers that they themselves manage on Amazon's servers.
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“This makes Amazon like your ISP. Every site, everything you do online [through...”
– Center for Democracy & Technology spokesperson Aaron Brauer-Rieke • Offering up this claim that Amazon will use Silk, which Amazon claims will help speed up Web sites on the Amazon Kindle Fire, as a tracking tool. To that, we say this: Are you guys familiar with this Web browser called Opera...
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Fighting rages in Sirte, Libyan NTC reclaims...
Dangerous times for civilians in Sirte: The Libyan National Transitional Council (NTC) has regained control of the Sirte airport, amidst fighting throughout the city. The airport had been under NTC control previously, but two weeks ago loyalists of deposed dictator Muammar Gaddafi (who was born in Sirte) recaptured it. Gaddafi loyalists have reportedly used rockets and sniper fire to fend off the...
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“It has come to our attention that recent twitter feeds are reporting false...”
– U.S. Capitol Police spokeswoman Sgt. Kimberly Schneider, unamused by the Twitter postings from The Onion, a satirical news site, which claimed that members of Congress had armed themselves with semi-automatic weapons, taken a group of schoolchildren hostage inside the Capitol building, and demanded...
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“I am gravely serious when I write this — if I catch someone not replacing the...”
– Beckerman Public Relations CEO Keith Zakheim • Freaking out over an empty milk carton and threatening to fire anyone who doesn’t replace it next time around. “Imagine my chagrin this morning when I stumbled in at 7:15 after enduring a typically painful Redskins loss and in dire need of a shot...
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sonicbloom: BofA to Charge $5 Monthly Fee for... →
sonicbloom11:
WSJ:
NEW YORK—Bank of America Corp., the largest U.S. bank by assets, plans to charge customers a $5 monthly fee for making debit-card purchases starting early next year, according to an internal memo sent to bank executives Thursday. [more]
I’m speechless.
Seem to remember rumblings of a similar fee elsewhere. No matter. This is a bad idea for many reasons.
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tatidomistar-deactivated2012022 asked: As a resident of NJ, I agree that we should not focus on the weight if Christie, but how much of a terrible Govenor he is! Yet I can't help but notice how this very sie posted a photo of Cornal West but reference his role on The Matrix not what he has done for civil rights & other social issues. If you want the people to focus on the real issues & the facts that matter maybe you...
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Here's another good-sounding economic story … with...
1.3% the increase in U.S. gross domestic product in the second quarter, based on updated final numbers
0.3% the improvement in that number from the initial estimates from the April-to-June quarter source
» Such evocative language in the source story: But before you get too excited about those three-tenths of one percent, just keep in mind the text that AFP used here: “The...
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Jobless claims fall to super-low level … but...
good news Weekly jobless claims reached their lowest level in nearly six months, which seems like it’s a cause to celebrate, especially since it greatly beat analysts’ estimates. On the surface, it seems like a cause for dancing in the streets, folks.
catch However … the Labor Department claims that report is off because of some sort of weird anomaly regarding the calendar, making it...
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longertweets asked: I don't see a problem with the ladies of The View criticizing Chris Christie for being fat. I think in this day and age if you can expect your leader to be morally righteous, by not being involved in extramarital affairs, the least you can do is expect them to be healthy. I don't know why the media has not made more of an issue about his weight. Everyone can point out that people are too...
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In Acapulco, Mexico, a brutal manifestation of the...
5 severed heads discovered in front of a primary school in Mexico source
» A sign things are getting worse: The city, once noted as a popular tourist destination, is now one of the drug war’s most violent battlegrounds, and this particular story is no exception in this often-disturbing tome. In this case, the heads were discovered while young students and pedestrians stood nearby, causing...
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“If it’s not Jensen Farms, it’s okay to eat. If you can’t confirm it’s not Jensen...”
– CDC director Thomas Frieden • Discussing the tainted cantaloupes that have killed and/or sickened dozens of people. The CDC is calling this listeria outbreak the deadliest one of its kind in the past decade. There’s no official list of the distributors in 25 states of the listeria-ridden...
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Fun fact: If you type "expensive homes along... →
That’s right; all it takes for someone to plan a robbery at your house is Google Maps. It was actually a strategy that worked incredibly well … and took months to solve. EDIT: We just did a test with this, and the results were stunning.
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Reebok's EasyTone shoes didn't exactly have a...
claim In 2009, Reebok launched these shoes called EasyTones, which they said would help you exercise while merely walking around. They also claimed they would make your butt and legs get toned. Kim Kardashian wore them.
rebuttal However, consumers saw through these shady claims, as did the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, which led to a settlement for the fairly massive sum of $25...
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“Throughout history, there have been similar challenges to other landmark...”
– A statement from the Justice Department • Defending Obama’s Affordable Care Act ahead of a Supreme Court decision expected to come next year, after the Obama administration decided to appeal the case — specifically the individual mandate, which is the bill’s most controversial...
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“I want to be able to say, meaningfully, ‘Bring it, fat boy!’ If you...”
– David Letterman • Talking about Chris Christie, and in the process, ticking us off for similar reasons that the women of “The View” did. You want to make fun of Chris Christie? Find a better reason than his weight, buck tooth. He’s given you plenty of ammo.
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Journal of a Journalist: Amazon Kindle Fire, iPad... →
journalofajournalist:
The Kindle Fire launch today is big news. Amazon is putting out a game-changer: a low-priced tablet with an awesome user interface (UI). We’ve seen cheap tablets placed on the market before, we’ve seen well-designed tablets (cough iPad cough), but never a product that combined the two qualities. This will be a real game changer. For my fellow journalists, a major question...
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Another quick hit from the Amazon presser: They're... →
It’s good to see them up the technology quotient a bit on these things. They were pretty late on the touchscreen thing.
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Deadly listeria outbreak linked to cantaloupes...
13+ people killed in a deadly listeria outbreak linked to cantaloupes
72+ people sickened by the worst outbreak in over a decade source
» Not like E. Coli or Salmonella: While those diseases are more well-known because outbreaks happen more often, listeria is deadlier, especially for those who are elderly, pregnant or have a weakened immune system. And the disease often manifests itself in a way...
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