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09 Dec 2011 14:47

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World: Missing ex-FBI agent to U.S.: Please meet my kidnappers’ demands

  • Above is the video of the former agent talking, along with his family talking before the clip. Bob Levinson went missing in Iran in March 2007, with little known about his situation — until today. In this clip, his son and mother show up beforehand. “Please tell us your demands so we can work together to bring my father home safely,” his son David says in the clip above. In the clip, the elder Levinson says that while he’s been treated well, he’s in poor health and low on diabetes medication. However, details on the group that has him are sparse and limited. The U.S. government believes he’s being held in southwestern Asia, and have asked the Iranian government for help in figuring out where he’s being held. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

09 Dec 2011 13:49

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Tech: Nintendo’s Shigeru Miyamoto retiring, not retiring; honestly we’re not sure

  • Is Nintendo’s game-master retiring? Wired’s readers had reason to worry Wednesday after an article led them to believe that Shigeru Miyamoto, the company’s top game designer, would be stepping aside and working on smaller projects. (It was an easy conclusion to make: The headline was literally “Nintendo’s Miyamoto Stepping Down, Working on Smaller Games.” He also said, in these exact words: “I’m not saying that I’m going to retire from game development altogether. What I mean by retiring is, retiring from my current position.”) However, Nintendo denies the report; they told PC Magazine that, in his Wired interview, that “he attempted to convey his priorities moving forward, inclusive of overseeing all video game development and ensuring the quality of all products.” The company also noted that he wanted to take on smaller projects to rekindle his early love of making games. Were there translation issues? source
Posted by samimain • 0 Comments • Permalink

09 Dec 2011 13:32

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U.S.: Congress plans investigations into military burial practices

  • The Tomb of the Unknown is one of our nation’s most hallowed places, guarded around the clock — regardless of weather — every day of the year. We owe this spirit of reverence not only to the unknown service members entombed at Arlington, but to all those who wear the uniform to protect and defend our freedom.
  • A joint statement from Reps. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) and Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) • Discussing a Washington Post scoop from the other day, in which reporters found that the remains of hundreds of soldiers taken from the Dover Air Force Base got put in a landfill, because, that, clearly, is the most respectful way to deal with the remains of soldiers who died in the line of duty. The count at this point is 274 soldiers. Cummings and Issa, the top members of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, have promised a deeper investigation — they plan to look at all military burial practices over the past decade, beyond just Dover.  source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

09 Dec 2011 12:25

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Culture: Today in useless, obvious studies: Cereals are way too sugary

  • Call us when Cap’n Crunch calls a press conference about this. Thanks to a recent study from the Environmental Working Group, we now know how much sugar is in some cereals. The amount of sugar, by weight, is highest in Honey Smacks (55.6%) and Golden Crisp (51.9%). Did anyone still consider typical kids’ cereals to be healthy? Feed ’em some Total instead. (This message is not brought to you by General Mills.) (photo by Horia Varlan on Flickr) source
Posted by samimain • 0 Comments • Permalink

09 Dec 2011 08:44

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U.S.: Occupy Wall Street shows up at “Law & Order: SVU” filming

  • There are certainly some folks who feel really offended by the attempt to kind of use this very real, very living movement, this economic justice movement that’s making real change for working families in this country, to use it in some kind of story line in this dramatic cop show. There are probably other folks among us who think it’s just a fun excuse to get together and share in public.
  • Occupy Wall Street press team member Ian Shan • Explaining why Occupy protesters raided the filming of a Zuccotti Park-themed “Law & Order: SVU” episode late last night. The actual Occupy protesters heard about the protest and decided to stage a “mockupy” protest at the event, which sounds like an amazing idea. And much like a real Occupy protest, police cleared out the scene around 1 a.m. last night. This sounds like the most amazing idea, ever — hopefully most did it with a sense of humor instead of malicious intent. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

08 Dec 2011 23:14

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U.S.: Texas food stamp tragedy: Awful in more ways than one

  • tragic On Monday, a mother in Texas shot her two children before killing herself. She died at the scene of the shooting. The children later died in the hospital — the daughter on Wednesday, the son Thursday. Just two hours before the shooting, daughter Ramie Grimmer updated her Facebook status to say: “may die 2day.”
  • more tragic Rachelle Grimmer killed her children in a food stamp office, after being denied food stamps on multiple occasions. She had been trying to apply since July but had been unable to do so, due to paperwork issues. The family was extremely poor and had been visited by Child Protective Services twice over neglect issues. source
Posted by samimain • 0 Comments • Permalink

08 Dec 2011 19:29

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Politics: Donald Trump-moderated debate will be a lonely affair

  • 2 GOP candidates will attend the Donald Trump debate source
  • » It only takes two to tango: The Newsmax-hosted, Donald Trump-moderated Republican debate later this month will feature only Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum, as Jon Huntsman, Ron Paul, Mitt Romney, Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann have all declined to attend. This is somewhat embarrassing for Trump and Gingrich, although Santorum could stand to benefit from going toe-to-toe with this month’s frontrunner. Question: Was Gary Johnson, who always complains about not being invited to these things, invited?
Posted by Seth Millstein • 0 Comments • Permalink

08 Dec 2011 15:10

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Politics: Senate GOP blocks vote on Cordray CFPB nomination

  • It’s not about Richard Cordray. That has become abundantly clear in the recent political jockeying over President Obama’s efforts to appoint a head to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which came into existence via the Dodd-Frank financial reform law from 2010. Republicans have made it clear their reason for this blockage isn’t so much Cordray himself, who was a quite popular Attorney General in Ohio, but rather the structure of the bureau itself; they want a board to be in charge, as opposed to a single director, which many Democrats have dismissed as a means of muddying or weakening the bureau’s regulatory ability. In any event, the final vote tally was 53 yeas, 45 nays, which due to the Republican vow to filibuster the nomination is insufficient (a 60 vote super-majority is required to override the filibuster process). source
Posted by Chris Tognotti • 0 Comments • Permalink

08 Dec 2011 14:14

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World: Inaction feared at climate change conference in Durban, South Africa

  • In a time of constraints, in a time of crisis, in a time of tough budgets, people are saying that charity starts at home, that we cannot deal with something noble but medium and long-term like the environment.
  • Angel Gurria, chief of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development • Discussing the stumbling inaction by the global community in adequately addressing the issue of climate change. 194 nations are currently convened in Durban, South Africa for a major conference on climate change, one which strives to reach agreements on carbon control to continue the process begun by the 1997 Kyoto Protocol; the EU has said they will not renew their emissions reduction standards unless measures are adopted so that all countries (most importantly the United States and China, the world’s worst polluters) must hold to certain emissions standards as well. This has caused turmoil in the discussions, as many less developed nations insist they haven’t been to blame for the surge in carbon to date, and thus shouldn’t be penalized as they now strive to industrialize. source
Posted by Chris Tognotti • 0 Comments • Permalink

08 Dec 2011 12:57

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U.S.: More on the case of Crystal Cox: A good decision made poorly?

  • The “blogger-not-a-journalist” thing still sticks, but … In the past few days, there’s been a bit of an uproar on the decision by a federal judge to decide, in a defamation case, that investigative blogger Crystal Cox isn’t a journalist protected by shield laws. We were ticked, too. However, Forbes reporter Kashmir Hill disputes the way the story was first presented by Seattle Weekly, which broke the story: “The facts in the case are far more complicated, and after hearing them, most journalists will not want to include Cox in their camp.” Hill points out that it appeared Cox was attempting to engage in reputation damage, not journalism, including sending out the e-mail shown above, in which Cox reportedly offered reputation-protection services. And ultimately, Cox’s claims —the ones that hit court after she was forced to give up her source — didn’t hold up to scrutiny. The fact of the matter is, the shield law element of this shouldn’t have even come up in the case: Even without it the claims wouldn’t have held up, according to Kevin Padrick, who claims ruin at the hands of Cox’s many sites. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 
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