Saturday, 4 June 2011
مســيرة حاشـدة في صعــدة وفــاء للتعــز 03 06 2011 Yemen
Uninstalling dictator ... 5% complete █░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░
Hetherington Doctrine
Last week at the First Presbyterian Church of New York my friends and colleagues and I said good-bye to photographer Tim Hetherington, who was killed in combat in Misrata, Libya, a month earlier. My wife and I sat behind Tim’s parents and siblings and watched their shoulders shudder with quiet sobs as people spoke. Tim grew up in England and the family had flown over for the service. Behind us were three journalists who had been in Misrata and miraculously survived the mortar that had landed in their midst killing not only Tim but an American photographer named Chris Hondros and several Libyan rebels. Across the aisle was Idil, Tim’s girlfriend of one year whose parents had emigrated from Somalia.
Tim had been schooled by Jesuits and perhaps as a result had gone through his life profoundly unreligious, so the service was secular. Following a rendition of Schubert’s heartbreaking Trio #2 in E Flat, two reggae musicians played Bob Marley’s “Redemption Song” and “One Love” between eulogies. I watched the pastor’s eyebrow arch in concern and then appreciation as Marley’s message of human understanding filled the church. Finally four American vets stood up, men from Battle Company of the 173rd Airborne who had been under fire with Tim and me many times in eastern Afghanistan. They filed out of their pew carrying two folded American flags that had been sent by Senator John McCain, himself a veteran of Vietnam. The young men presented my country’s flag to the Hetherington family and then to Idil.
I missed most of that beautiful moment because I was crying too hard, but later I did savor one comforting thought: this may be one of the few countries in the world where a senator would see fit to present the national flag to a woman of Somali origin in honor of an Englishman killed in Libya. Whatever criticisms one might level at our county, we are sometimes capable of including the entire world in our embrace. In the midst of our painful debate about immigration, about war, and about our responsibility to other countries, it is an important thing to remember. It was perhaps one of the reasons that Tim had moved here—to escape what he felt to be the stultifying atmosphere of London.
Tim was 40 years old when he died and had devoted most of his professional life to documenting the human cost of war. On April 20, in a bombed-out section of Misrata, a single mortar shell made him part of the cost. He was hit in the groin with shrapnel and bled out in the back of a pickup truck while a photojournalist he had just met held his hand and tried to keep him awake. Hours earlier, amidst fierce shelling by Qaddafi forces, Tim had sent what was to be his last message on Twitter: In besieged Libyan city of Misurata. Indiscriminate shelling by Qaddafi forces. No sign of NATO...
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Sebastian Junger @'Vanity Fair'
Hard-Core Online Drug Bazaar Thumbs its Nose at The Law
Let’s say you want to sell drugs on the Internet. Not black-market prescription drugs, but illegal drugs, all kinds, all sizes. A digital dream market, where a portion of the day’s specials on sale might read like: “A gram of Afghani hash; 1/8 ounce of “sour 13″ weed; 14 grams of ecstasy; .1 gram tar heroin.” An Internet drugstore this wide open must be either a DEA sting or the dumbest idea in web history, you say to yourself. But maybe not. An investigation by Gawker found enough satisfied customers to give us pause. The site uses a reputation-based rating system for keeping track of seller performance, a setup familiar to anyone who has made purchases on Amazon or eBay. One customer wrote of his purchase of psychedelic drugs: “Excellent quality, packing and communication. Arrived exactly as described.” Five stars for that one. "It's Amazon," wrote Adrian Chen at Gawker, "if Amazon sold mind-altering chemicals."
Well, how do they get away with it? For now, they seem to be getting away with it using the same digital cryptographic tools that enabled the great digital music download era. An encryption algorithm disguises users, courtesy of the anonymous network TOR. Buyers then use a proprietary form of money—Bitcoins—made possible by the same technology that brought us the peer-to-peer file sharing protocol known as Bittorrent. Bitcoins are a form of peer-to-peer money which can be purchased with regular money at other obscure sites, and then deposited in an account at Silk Road as cyber-currency.
So, to recap: The DEA probably can’t ID Silk Road purchasers, due to the TOR anonymizer, and they can’t follow the money because there isn’t any. Gawker managed to communicate with the Silk Road overlords, who wrote back: “Stop funding the state with your tax dollars and direct your productive energies into the black market.” Which gives us a pretty good idea where they stand, politically. Libertarian anarchists, rejoice! This site’s for you.
Dirk Henson @'The Fix'
Bitcoin, Silk Road, and LulzSec oh my!
Underwear - What does it really take to turn him off?
Her: Only if they're crotchless!
Him: They could be in the wrapped up in a plastic bag in the trunk of the car and I'd still think he'd be staring at me.
Her: Guys like Radiohead. Music and sex go together!
Him: He's still staring at me.
Her: Maybe he's not staring. Maybe he's just sad.
Him: Sad Thom Yorke is not sexy.
Her: What if they were crotchless?
Him: (silence)
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Friday, 3 June 2011
Unbelievable!
Fury over advert claiming Egypt revolution as Vodafone's
abubanda Darryl Li أبو باندا
@zunguzungu I hear the same ad agency is working on a vid for Dow on how Agent Orange liberated Vietnam http://youtu.be/ihvtjqNbyos
@zunguzungu I hear the same ad agency is working on a vid for Dow on how Agent Orange liberated Vietnam http://youtu.be/ihvtjqNbyos
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