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25 Jul 2009 22:35

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U.S.: A reporter on Texas’ death row executes his job consistently

  • 315 executions in Texas seen by a single reporter source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

25 Jul 2009 22:27

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U.S.: It’s official: We can settle our racial differences over beer

  • The president, a scholar and a cop walk into a bar … Henry Louis Gates Jr. confirmed today that he accepted a chance to have a beer with not only the white Cambridge police officer who arrested him, but President Barack Obama, whose spare comments on Gates’ arrest got him in the middle of a bunch of drama we’re sure he didn’t want. They won’t be drinking at some corner bar outside of Harvard, though – they’ll be drinking at the White House, which we’re sure is well-stocked with some quality brew. source
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25 Jul 2009 22:22

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World: Ahmadinejad sure took his sweet time removing his buddy from office

  • The Iranian nation didn’t expect the ink on the leader’s letter to dry out while it was not yet implemented.
  • Maj. Gen. Seyed Hassan • Chairman of Iran’s joint chiefs of staff, regarding Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s slow timing regarding booting out his vice president, Esfandiar Rahim Mashai. Ahmadinejad was ordered to remove Mashai from office by Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, due to comments he made that were seen as sympathetic towards Israel. • source
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25 Jul 2009 21:56

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Music: Saturday Mixtape: Rising indie stars and old indie pros

  • 1. It’s good to hear when a band you kinda like starts getting attention. Shoegaze + NES band The Depreciation Guild is kinda like that – after a killer free album in 2007, “In Her Gentle Jaws,” one of the members made a name for himself with The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, and the rest is history. “Dream About Me” is a solid starting points.
    2. Much like The Flaming Lips or The Apples in Stereo, Wheat is a band that works best in full technicolor. The longstanding band’s just-out “White Ink, Black Ink,” especially “Changes Is,” shows that they haven’t lost their spark with time.
    3. Wye Oak’s first album was awesome because it didn’t try to fit into trends. It was just solid. The just-out second album tries a little too hard, but “I Want for Nothing” proves that that isn’t always a bad thing.
    4. This band changes its name more often than any band should – Memory Tapes? Weird Tapes? They’ve been called both, along with Memory Cassette – but either way, “Asleep At a Party,” a fractured, time-worn tune, lives up to both the song’s – and the band’s – name.
    5. Slow-buiding has always been the best way to describe indie icons Low, and “Sunflower” is one of those songs that nails their appeal. A high point for a lengthy career. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

25 Jul 2009 10:24

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Tech: Walt Mossberg sez upgrading to Windows 7 a pain in the butt

  • If you use XP, it forces you to do a clean install. Mossberg, who otherwise praised the new version of Windows, noted that the OS had a requirement unlike any of its previous versions: If you’re on XP, you need to do a clean install, which will force you to lose all your programs and possibly any personal data. In fact, MS recommends that you just bite the bullet and buy a new computer with Windows 7 installed. Oh, how convenient that they’d recommend that! source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 1 Comment • Permalink

25 Jul 2009 10:17

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Offbeat: A retiring soldier eats 36-year-old cake, lives to tell about it

  • I would eat it any chance I could get, but not all of the meals came with pound cake.
  • Retiring Army Col. Henry Moak • Describing the cake in a can he ate at his retirement ceremony. It was a military-issue cake he loved eating. Moak, who was issued the cake in 1973, wasn’t trying to get sick by eating the cake – “I won’t eat it if it’s black and moldy,” he said – but the delicacy actually held up OK. “It’s good, it’s still kind of moist,” he said. • source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 4 Comments • Permalink

25 Jul 2009 10:08

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Biz: Online advertising didn’t buck the trend of the recession

  • -5% decline in online ads in 1Q 2009; time to rethink? source
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25 Jul 2009 09:20

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U.S.: George W. Bush military targets: Afghanistan, Iraq, Buffalo … ?

  • Bush nearly pulled the Buffalo trigger in 2002. Imagine this scene. You’re living in Buffalo in 2002, probably sitting in a restaurant eating some wings or a garbage plate or something like that. All of a sudden, you see soldiers running through the street, attempting to arrest some terrorists. You’d be freaked out, right? Well, the Bush Administration was considering doing just this in 2002 in an attempt to arrest the terrorists who later became known as the Lackawanna Six. Guess who was pushing for this approach? That’s right. Dick Cheney. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

25 Jul 2009 09:10

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Sports: Matt Holliday: Worthy of a big trade, not above riding Amtrak

  • Getting from New York to Philly on a Friday afternoon can be tough. I’m extremely excited to be back in the National League, to be back in a pennant race. This is a great team, a great organization.
  • St. Louis Cardinals slugger Matt Holliday • Who earlier in the day on Friday was a member of the Oakland Athletics. The Athletics were playing in NYC, while the Cards were playing in Philly, so he went the public transit route to scoot between cities. The star hitter was traded for a bunch of minor-league prospects and is seen as the final piece of a roster that will help the Cardinals make a pennant run. • source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 1 Comment • Permalink

25 Jul 2009 09:00

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Offbeat: Some pig: Is this fugitive feral swine the libertarian ideal?

This pig has been on the run around Panama City, Fla., for five months and has a rep so bacony – it fended of tasers! – that it has a Facebook page. source
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