ShortFormBlogMay 8, 2011

You’ve tarnished Apple’s reputation … You should hate each other for having let each other down … Mossberg, our friend, is no longer writing good things about us.
Apple CEO Steve Jobs • Yelling at the MobileMe team in 2008, in response to criticism of the service, which had a rocky launch and even got a negative review from Apple fanboi numero uno, Walt Mossberg. He named a new executive to shepherd the MobileMe product right then and there. The revelation that Steve Jobs is kind of an asshole isn’t really a new one, but this particular story is new. Although … this kind of says a lot about Jobs that he has to note that Walt Mossberg is downright chummy with Apple. Conflict of interest? source

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Know how sure Obama was that Osama bin Laden was in that Pakistani compound? 55 percent. But he went for it anyway. Like a boss. source

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We don’t want to give them the opportunity to take advantage of our technology, and we have nothing to gain from dealing with them. China is spying against us, and every U.S. government agency has been hit by cyber-attacks. They are stealing technology from every major U.S. company. They have taken technology from NASA, and they have hit the NSF computers … You name the company, and the Chinese are trying to get its secrets.
Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.) • Describing the reasoning behind his addition to the recent spending bill that blocks two key U.S. government scientific groups — NASA and the White House Office of Science and Technology — from collaborating jointly with China on any scientific projects. (Wolf has his reasons — his office was attacked in 2006 by Chinese hackers, so he’s been there.) While the White House is pulling the “foreign policy is OK!” card to work around this, it still sets a strange precedent that rolls back decades of collaboration. Now that Osama bin Laden is gone, is China the new boogeyman? Or do we need to keep our neighbor to the East out of the cookie jar? source

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A round of sectarian violence: After a set of rumors suggested a woman was being held against her will in a Coptic Christian church in a suburb of Cairo, Muslims reacted by causing violence around the church in question — and setting fire to a nearby church. Around ten people were killed, with another 186 injured; the Egyptian government plans to try 190 people detained for the violence, which a couple of people in this video suggest was an attempt by the old regime to flare up tensions between Muslims and the Coptic Christian minority. source

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I still do not know what I am going to do. Of course I’d like to see my family.
An alleged Libyan rape victim • Revealing to the world that weeks after loudly revealing her brutal plight to a hotel full of journalists, she has left Libya and relocated to Tunisia as a refugee. She escaped, she says, in a military car wearing a head cover that covered everything except one eye. After a “very tiring” trip, she is currently staying at the French embassy in Tunis while she considers her fate. Let’s hope she never has to go back, or if she does, it’s at a time when the culture around her better understands her plight. source

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08 May 2011 22:02