[Mr. Mechanical]

Also, hell, if you guys want to argue about Israel/Palestine go right ahead. I won't stop you. However I should make it clear that I'm still expecting people to post neat little news articles as they find them and such, regardless of what else people are arguing about at the moment.
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[Mr. Mechanical]

[Takashi]

Al-Jazeera coverage on this is pretty good. Not only they're on the terrain in Gaza (since they're not "western reporters"), they are balancing both sides of the conflict better than regular european coverage (that tends to side to Palestine anyways, and is mostly run by hot air and hearsays since they can't actually be there).
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low-end.net | Whimsy (soon) | Serfdom 2.0

[boojiboy7]

[CubaLibre]

I'm not a huge expert, but here's the article that piqued my interest:

http://www.slate.com/id/2206711/
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Let's Play, starring me.

[Toptube]

Ex Air Force fighter pilot Chesley B. "Sully" Sullenberger III, 57, of Danville, Calif crash landed an Airbus 320 (passenger jet) into the hudson river. Witnesses said it looked like a controlled gliding descent, pulled up a bit at the last second. Plane intact, every passenger walked out.

Flight 1549

"He walked the plane twice after everybody else was off, and tried to verify that there was nobody else on board, and he assures us there was not."

"He was the last one up the aisle and he made sure that there was nobody behind him."

http://www.king5.com/topstories/stories/NW_011509NAB_us-airways-crash-seattle_JM.764e272.html

[GcDiaz]

Fucking A. That's how it's done, gentlemen.

Makes me wonder why the FUCK we think Navy has the best pilots...
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Steam/PSN/Xbawks: GcDiaz

Let's bring sexy back!

[spinach]

dumbest shit i ever read

[CubaLibre]

Too bad you already voted for him, suckers.
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Let's Play, starring me.

[negativedge]

for fucks sake someone just needs to nuke us off the map

[CubaLibre]

That's just as dumb as the people in that article.
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Let's Play, starring me.

[negativedge]

well yeah

you expect an intelligent response to that?

[spinach]

[spinach]

and two more, completely unrelated

http://www.european-viewpoint.com/nekkid-blogger/the-bare-breast-movement-wants-female-breasts-de-sexualized/

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2009/01/23/encyclopaedia-brittanica-goes-wiki/1

[Lick Meth]

I don't know whether it's relevent to the thread but could Chuplayer explain his sig? Quote for others, semi-intrigue for me.

[Mr. Mechanical]

Not really a current event but I just found the link to this really cool panoramic high resolution photo of the inauguration. Be sure to zoom in all the way and see Bush and Cheney's expressions, or all the huddled masses freezing their asses off further out. It's truly astounding how close in you can zoom and still be at a really decent resolution.

Also I haven't really noticed it until now but the first lady is a bit of a looker. What a nice change of pace.
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[CubaLibre]

Hey, I was there. Not in the picture though, since I wasn't on the Mall, I was on Pennsylvania.
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Let's Play, starring me.

[CubaLibre]

Fuck Yes.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/05/us/05forensics.html?_r=1&th&emc=th
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Let's Play, starring me.

[Mr. Mechanical]

[CubaLibre]

We probably do. There's no "forensic science" version of CLIA, the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Act, which was enacted in the 80's and forms the basis for all clinical research experiments - double blind protocols, oversight and accreditation, etc. The thing is, clinical research is done by 1. pharmaceutical corporations, 2. big private universities and 3. the federal government so they can fund such procedures themselves. Since forensic labs will almost certainly remain under state/local control, without federal funding they won't be able to implement higher scientific standards. But with federal funding comes federal oversight, because otherwise there's no way to be certain that the funding is being used properly.
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Let's Play, starring me.

[rabite gets whacked!]

Visit sunny Falluja.
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[Chuplayer]

[spinach]

http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2009/02/arts_bashing.html

also, OLPC is now open-hardware

[spinach]

http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/open-source-goes-washington

[spinach]

some fucking bullshit

[Cossix]

[CubaLibre]

Meh. I mean, it's stupid, but consider the meaning of the case's disposition. The only thing that happened is that that the judge said "this case can go to trial," which forced the website to settle. But, there was no ruling on the merits - the website may have won. More importantly, it's just some shitty district court and nothing really matters til it hits the appellate level anyway.
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Let's Play, starring me.

[spinach]

[Dark Age Iron Savior]

fred phelps and his daughter have been barred from entering the UK

I support free speech and all but as far as censorship goes, this is a pretty good trend if you're going to do such
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[Mr. Mechanical]

Flight 253 passenger: Sharp-dressed man aided terror suspect Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab onto plane without passport

The passenger, Kurt Haskell, made some comments under the name "pug" in the comments section.

[Adilegian]

Sup Mech! You turned me onto Glenn Greenwald, and I in turn am sharing an analysis of his on the state of our national wars.
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[Mr. Mechanical]

Greenwald <3 <3
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[CubaLibre]

[Mr. Mechanical]

He would probably agree with that since 76% of the US population claims to be Christian, as do the majority its political leadership.
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[psiga]

Mh. Thanks for that Greenwald vid. Really nice perspective.

His talking about the people killed in air strikes reminds me of... let's see if I can find the stories...

This is a start: http://www.moonofalabama.org/2009/05/around-the-hindu-kush-30-is-a-magic-number-an-update.html



And there was another which I'm not finding now, but whatever. Basically it was outlining the 'magic numbers' of modern war, insomuch as what number you'd need in order to justify a UAV strike (about 30), and what number of civvie casualties you'd need in order for it to be considered newsworthy enough for international media to throw a fit (I thought it was about 20, though memory is hazy).

But as the Greenwald vid points out, these towns care plenty about 8 here, 12 there, 5 there; and their news sources are willing to cover it while ours aren't.

I am still, nearly a decade later, wondering why CIA and military industrial complex are insisting on large scale wars against vaguely defined and asymmetrically-inclined enemies. The ol' "perpetual war for perpetual peace" saw? Too much money and prestige in it for the lifers? People in charge who shouldn't be in charge but get to stay in charge because there's no democracy in their bureaucracy?
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[negativedge]

luckily barrack obama was here to change everything for the college students and bloggers

[psiga]

O-dogg was surprised at how little influence the president actually has while presiding. I kinda doubt that he's personally into this whole surge in Afghanistan idea, or the Yemen thing, or the Pakistan thinnngg.... As I see it, he is either privy to sensible information which we are not, or he has no choice in the whole ugly matter and just has to play figurehead to placate the masses.

Either way:


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[Mr. Mechanical]

New interview with that Kurt Haskell fellow.
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[Shiren the Launderer]

[CubaLibre]

True enough, but that's not the force of his phrase, which is that such countries are essentially identifiable as Muslim and therefore our entire foreign policy has to be tooled with that fact in mind. I don't believe our First Amendment allows use of the American military to establish theocracies in other states.
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Let's Play, starring me.

[Dracko]

Today in America: