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04 Feb 2011 21:59

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World: Why were Thai and Cambodian armies fighting today?

  • It seems to have been a result of a misunderstanding. There is no point in fighting because it could escalate and damage relations… We don’t want that.
  • Thai army chief Prayuth Chan-ocha • Attempting to explain why his country’s troops got into a conflict with Cambodia Friday – which killed two Cambodian soldiers and one Thai villager. The two countries fought in an area surrounding a 900-year-old Hindu temple that has been a source of much conflict in the past. The Cambodian government accuses the Thai army of targeting villagers after they entered Cambodia’s territory. “We said to them ‘don’t come in the area’ and they still came. We fired into the air and they began to shoot at us,” said spokesperson Khieu Kanharith. source
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04 Feb 2011 21:43

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Tech: A Kindle + A Moleskine + An Etch-A-Sketch = The Noteslate

  • Take the advantages of the Kindle. Add writing. Take out the Internet. Make it like a Moleskine that’s perfect for notes. What do you get? If you answered “the coolest Etch-A-Sketch ever made,” you’re a little more than halfway there. (via Hacker News) source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

04 Feb 2011 21:24

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Culture: Reddit’s hivemind accidentally turns on girl’s cancer fundraiser

  • cause A girl who was looking to raise donations for a charity head-shaving event (in support of cancer victims) posted a few times on Reddit for the campaign.
  • effect The Reddit community turned on her after one user claimed she was a total scammer; even the FBI was called. Problem was, the girl was a real girl and not lying.
  • result The Redditor was proven wrong, and she even ended up raising a couple more bucks than she would’ve otherwise – and Gawker even wrote about her. source
  • » Postscript: Now, after scolding Reddit for almost ruining a girl’s head-shaving campaign, the site’s community manager, Erik Martin, is offering to shave his head if the site can raise $30,000. As for the girl, Maya Gilsey of St. Lawrence University, she got her head shaved today. Good for her.
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

04 Feb 2011 20:44

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Politics: Virginia Thomas: From judge’s wife to activist to lobbyist

Yes, Virginia, she is a lobbyist. The wife of Clarence Thomas, who recently left a gig as leader of a Tea Party-leaning group, is now wining and dining GOP legislators. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

04 Feb 2011 17:34

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Biz: Bernie Madoff trustee: The NY Mets knowingly took ill-gotten cash

  • $300
    million     the estimated amount in profits the New York Mets allegedly earned from Bernie Madoff’s ponzi scheme
  • $90
    million     the estimated amount that the team reportedly took from Bernie Madoff-related bank accounts source
  • » And now they’re being pressured to give it up: Irving Picard, the trustee in charge of the insanely massive Bernie Madoff account, claims in a lawsuit that the Mets organization, represented by Sterling Equities, turned a blind eye to Madoff’s scheme and had plenty of opportunities to see red flags pop up. “The Sterling partners were simply in too deep – having substantially supported their businesses with Madoff money – to do anything but ignore the gathering clouds,” says the complaint first made public on Friday. Officials for the team call the claims “an outrageous strong-arm effort” at getting money out of them, and deny any wrongdoing.
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

04 Feb 2011 17:04

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World: Experts: Volatile Egypt unlikely to fall into Iran-style regime

  • No representative system can take root in Egypt without the Brotherhood’s participation. But, after spending the last half century battling Islamist political forces, the military leadership will have trouble overcoming its deep disdain for the Brotherhood.
  • Center for Strategic & International Studies’ Middle East program deputy director Haim Malka • Discussing the deep divide between the military and the Muslim Brotherhood which may make Democracy in the region difficult – but at the same time, make it hard for an Iran-style regime to take hold in Egypt. With the military holding so much power over the country, many scholars see such a result as unlikely, due to their lack of power in the region and the dissenters being less radical than those in Iran. source
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04 Feb 2011 14:19

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Biz, U.S.: Unemployment rate: How did it fall with such low job creation?

  • 36,000new jobs in January (really freaking low)
  • 9.8% November’s really high unemployment rate
  • 9.4% December’s falling unemployment rate
  • 9.0% January’s rate; how did it dip so far? source
  • » Explaining exactly what happened: We’ve seen three perfectly valid arguments for why this disparity between slow job growth and deep unemployment decline took place. The first is pointed out by a Gallup chart that shows that non-seasonally-adjusted unemployment is actually at 9.8 percent – suggesting seasonal adjustment is skewing the numbers. The second suggested reason is much more sinister-sounding: Unemployment benefits for so-called 99ers are starting to run out, and they aren’t looking for jobs, meaning that they are no longer covered as part of the total amount. Finally, the weather sucked in January, with snow covering most of the country, so that could be a possible explanation too. So, which one is the case, anyway?
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04 Feb 2011 13:33

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U.S.: Gabrielle Giffords’ husband Mark Kelly going back to astronaut job

  • January Astronaut Mark Kelly had to stop his preparations for a space flight after finding out his wife, Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, was shot in the head by a really crazy kid.
  • Monday With Giffords in full recovery mode in Houston, Kelly will return to his preparations for leading the space shuttle Columbia into orbit in a couple months.
  • April Kelly will leave for space, his fourth trip. His goal is that his crew “can execute this mission safely — and that it’s successful.” This is a good sign, right? source
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04 Feb 2011 13:05

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World: Interesting: Some Mubarak-tied officials joining with protesters

  • I am participating in the protests and I have issued statements that support the revolutionists as far as they go.
  • Al Azhar spokesman Mohamed Rafah Tahtawy • Explaining that he’s taking part in the Egypt protests, rather than continuing at their state-sponsored job. Al-Azhar, a Sunni Muslim educational institution, is the largest state-tied religious institution, so it’s a notable switching of sides. But he’s not the only one: Amr Moussa, the Arab League‘s secretary-general and a former Mubarak staffer, was also in the crowd. Signs of fracturing support for Hosni Mubarak are notable since today’s protest is intended to push him out of office. source
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04 Feb 2011 12:35

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U.S.: Census: Post-Katrina New Orleans shrinks by a third

  • 484,674 New Orleans’ population as of the 2000 census
  • 343,829 the city’s population in 2010, five years after Hurricane Katrina source
  • » As a whole, the country grew: In contrast with the decline of New Orleans’ population, the population at large grew by 9.7 percent, to 308.7 million. The data, overall, is expected to show that minorities caused much of the growth.
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