May 21, 2012

usnatarchives:

Margie was a very different kind of pin-up girl. She was not salacious, and her clothes were neatly buttoned up. She was a young wife on the homefront pining for soldier husband, and her serious and articulate “letters” that appeared alongside her image were about managing money. But she was a big hit with the young men fighting overseas during World War II.

“Margie” was created to encourage soldiers to manage their pay. Her letters informed soldiers about soldiers’ deposits, personal transfer accounts, Class E allotments of pay, War Bonds, and National Service Life insurance. The posters were distributed in posts, commands, and theaters of operation.

She was also a real person. Margie Stewart passed away this May at the age of 92. She was not a soldier, but she gave the men overseas a reason and a reminder to plan for a life with their sweethearts after the war ended.

These posters are part of the holdings of the National Archives and can be found in Record Group 44.

(via todaysdocument)

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May 19, 2012
shortformblog: For some, a massive IPO that earned them billions of dollars would be the most important thing to happen in their week. For Mark Zuckerberg, it’s a close second. Congrats to the new Mr. & Mrs. Mark Zuckerberg.

shortformblog:

For some, a massive IPO that earned them billions of dollars would be the most important thing to happen in their week. For Mark Zuckerberg, it’s a close second. Congrats to the new Mr. & Mrs. Mark Zuckerberg.

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May 19, 2012

stfuconservatives:

(tw for torture and police brutality)

hiphopcheerleader:

madamethursday:

tranzient:

esmeweatherwax:

theneighbourhoodsuperhero:

Omar Khadr, a sixteen year old Guantanamo Bay detainee weeps uncontrollably, clutching at his face and hair as he calls out for his mother to save him from his torment. “Ya Ummi, Ya Ummi (Oh Mother, Oh Mother),” he wails repeatedly, hauntingly with each breath he takes.

The surveillance tapes, released by Khadr’s defence, show him left alone in an interrogation room for a “break” after he tried complaining to CSIS (Canadian Security Intelligence Service) officers about his poor health due to insufficient medical attention. Ignoring his complaints and trying to get him to make false confessions, the officers get frustrated with the sixteen year old’s tears and tell him to get himself together by the time they come back from their break.

“You don’t care about me. Nobody cares about me,” he sobs to them.

The tapes show how the officers manipulated Khadr into thinking that they were helping him because they were also Canadian and how they taunted him with the prospect of home (Canada), (good) food, and familial reunion.

Khadr, a Canadian, was taken into US custody at the age of fifteen, tortured and refused medical attention because he wouldn’t attest to being a member of Al Qaeda, even though he was shot three times in the chest and had shrapnel embedded in his eyes and right shoulder. As a result, Khadr’s left eye is now permanently blind, the vision in his right eye is deteriorating, he develops severe pain in his right shoulder when the temperature drops, and he suffers from extreme nightmares.

He has been incarcerated at Guantanamo Bay since 2002, suffering extremely harsh interrogations and torture (methods), and is now 25 years old.

How can they justify shooting and imprisoning a CHILD

normalized psycopathic behavior at the national level.

This is seriously serial-killer level torturing shit. If a single person did this, capturing a teenage boy and keeping them locked up and treating them like this, we’d call them a serial killer, a predator, a sociopath. 

But when the government does it and has several individuals on a lot of levels making it happen, suddenly it’s okay. 

remember when Obama first got elected, the first thing he said he would do is close Guantanamo?  cuz… yea. -__-

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May 11, 2012

npr:

Here’s a new step in the effort to retrofit our cities so they run on ones and zeros.

Lea County, New Mexico was selected this week as the site of a billion-plus dollar test location for new urban technology called the Center for Innovation Testing and Evaluation.  The plan is to build a city from scratch on more than 17 square miles of desert west of the city of Hobbs.  It’ll be big enough to house tens of thousands of people. But all those buildings will be mostly empty.

A private company, Pegasus Global Holdings, with a background in militarizing commercial technology is behind the project. Managing Director Robert Brumley says this moves Pegasus into the multi-billion-dollar smart cities market.  Brumley tells NPR the plan is to create a place where businesses, government and universities can take ideas out of the laboratory and try them out without affecting the people or the infrastructure in a real city.

He envisions testing self-driving trucks without the danger of running anyone over, testing energy storage without risking a power outage for residents, or testing wireless electronics without inadvertently causing people’s garage doors to open and close.

Brumley says CITE will be a “dumb city” in construction, outfitted with “copper, dsl, cable, coax and fiber. But underneath,” he says, “we’re going to wire it up with state of the art technology.” The first step is basically to dig a gigantic hole in the ground.

Local and state officials are welcoming and thrilled at the prospect of the new business this could generate. New Mexico’s governor turned out for the press conference.  Says Brumley: “you’ve heard of NIMBY (Not In My Backyard). We have never confronted that in New Mexico.”

Final signatures are not on the real estate deal yet, but it involves a big land purchase and a supplemental 25 year lease from the county. The plan is to break ground for construction in June.

-          Franklyn Cater

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May 10, 2012
The GQ Tumblr: Wash Post on Young Mitt Romney At Prep School

gq:

Today’s other big politics story, from the excellent (and occasional GQ contributor) Jason Horowitz at The Washington Post. The dumb crap you do in high school doesn’t, and almost always shouldn’t, matter in a presidential election. Especially when it was a half century ago. All the same… Wow.

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May 7, 2012
shortformblog: Sometimes a photo tells the whole story: ”Torn election posters of French President and UMP candidate Nicolas Sarkozy are seen in Paris Sunday, May 6, 2012. France voted in a presidential run-off election Sunday expected to see Socialist challenger Francois Hollande defeat incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy by capitalizing on public anger over spending cuts and a Europe-wide push for austerity.” Sarkozy has conceded defeat in the election, wishing his opponent “good luck.” (Photo by Francois Mori/AP)

shortformblog:

Sometimes a photo tells the whole story: ”Torn election posters of French President and UMP candidate Nicolas Sarkozy are seen in Paris Sunday, May 6, 2012. France voted in a presidential run-off election Sunday expected to see Socialist challenger Francois Hollande defeat incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy by capitalizing on public anger over spending cuts and a Europe-wide push for austerity.” Sarkozy has conceded defeat in the election, wishing his opponent “good luck.” (Photo by Francois Mori/AP)

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May 5, 2012

jtotheizzoe:

Even Monkeys Can Sense a Raw Deal

Are animals moral? It’s an ongoing debate, and one that is prone to anthropomorphizing animal behaviors. But scientists have been able to track down cases of moral judgment in certain species. Here’s a pretty hilarious example.

Capuchin monkeys love grapes. But they’ll also eat cucumbers if you give them one. They just really prefer grapes. This team had the monkeys complete a task, simply putting a stone in the handler’s palm, and then they got their food reward. Only they could see what the other monkey was getting. The first round goes fine, and one gets a grape while the other is given only cucumber. Next round? Well, that’s in the video :)

The researchers concluded that the monkeys were, in fact, weighing the deal they got, and responding with feelings of envy and frustration. Even more, when both get cucumbers, they are perfectly happy with that snack! It seems to be all about fairness and cooperation for them. It fits with the social nature of primates, as cooperating groups would be biologically rewarded.

While pretty funny, it definitely shows signs that some of our core emotions may have very basic neurological roots! 

Here’s a link to the full videotaped talk on monkeynomics and moral behavior in animals by Frans de Waal.

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May 1, 2012
inothernews: DON’T COP   An Occupy London protester offers a flower to a police officer to mark May Day.  In the U.S., demonstrations, strikes and acts of civil disobedience were planned Tuesday, including what could be the country’s most high-profile Occupy rallies since the anti-Wall Street encampments came down in the fall.  (Photo: Lefteris Pitarakis / AP via MSNBC)

inothernews:

DON’T COP   An Occupy London protester offers a flower to a police officer to mark May Day.  In the U.S., demonstrations, strikes and acts of civil disobedience were planned Tuesday, including what could be the country’s most high-profile Occupy rallies since the anti-Wall Street encampments came down in the fall.  (Photo: Lefteris Pitarakis / AP via MSNBC)

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May 1, 2012

israelfacts:

A Palestinian woman waves her national flag after she managed to climb atop an Israeli military vehicle during a demonstration by hundreds of people gathered outside Ofer military prison near the West Bank city of Ramallah on May 1, 2012 in a show of support for thousands of prisoners held in Israeli jails, many of whom are on hunger strike protesting for their basic human rights.

She, along with other protesters, were sprayed with ‘skunk’ water and pepper spray (video) — from just a few inches away — by the Israeli army, who also fired tear gas and rubber bullets. (Photos: Abir Kopty / Reuters)

From Mondoweiss:

Now in its second week, a mass hunger strike is spreading across Israeli prisons with some 2,000 Palestinians protesting for their basic rights: an end to solitary confinement and imprisonment without charge, and access to education, media and family visits. And while prisoners in the Karameh (dignity) hunger strike have yet to achieve their goals, after 14 days without food, they have successfully mobilized Palestinian society and pressured Israeli authorities—in ways that are reminiscent of the first Intifada.

Known as the “battle of the empty stomachs,” the open-ended strike began on April 17, 2012, Palestinian Prisoners’ Day, with an initial 1,200 protestors. Within days the strike spread to other prisoners. Now the number of strikers has increased to over 2,000, with new groups joining daily. 105 Fatah affiliated prisoners held in Israel’s Eshel detention facility are the latest group to announce their participation, which will begin tomorrow.

The sudden increase in protesting Palestinian prisoners is also accompanied by hunger striking Egyptians who are held in Israeli detention. Last Friday 40 of the 63 imprisoned Egyptians joined the protest to demand their release, which was planned to take place that same day. However, after negotiations between Egypt and Israel on a gas pipeline failed, Israel punitively canceled the prisoner release, inciting the protest.

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April 30, 2012
newyorker: Last week in The New Yorker, Jake Halpern wrote about the discovery of billions of dollars worth of gold underneath the Sri Padmanabhaswamy temple in Trivandrum, India. We sent Chiara Goia to photograph: http://nyr.kr/IPdW8s

newyorker:

Last week in The New Yorker, Jake Halpern wrote about the discovery of billions of dollars worth of gold underneath the Sri Padmanabhaswamy temple in Trivandrum, India. We sent Chiara Goia to photograph: http://nyr.kr/IPdW8s

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