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21 Feb 2011 10:43

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Politics: In partial defense of the Wisconsin State Journal’s bad photo editing

  • We’ve noticed a couple of our followers mentioning this pretty stellar Awl article about the situation in Wisconsin. This isn’t really about that, except indirectly. It mentioned this photo gallery using this phrase: “The Wisconsin State Journal, ran an entire photo journal titled ‘Saturday protests at the Capitol’—which contained photos only of the Walker supporters.” Now, we don’t like being critical of a publication we like (The Awl is cool), but this simply isn’t true. What we’re witnessing, conversely, is a bad case of photo editing which seems to emphasize the Tea Partiers above all else. There are a lot of photos of the Tea Party in this slideshow, either way, seemingly more than of the much larger crowd around them. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

21 Feb 2011 09:59

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World: What happens to Libya’s expatriates during a crisis like this?

  • issue For years, many Libyans have attempted to leave the country – illegally, mind you – on refugee boats that travel through the Mediterranean. The refugees have mostly headed to Italy.
  • tactic Before the current crisis, Libya and Italy had a deal where the two countries would intercept them and send them back to Libya to detention centers – which is, um, a human rights violation.
  • problem People are leaving in larger numbers now – 5,000 in the past week – and Libya has threatened to stop cooperating. So now, the EU is trying to figure out a way to take in the expatriates. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

21 Feb 2011 09:45

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World: Trouble in Tripoli: A volatile situation quickly deteriorates

  • 61+ people reported killed in the protests in Tripoli just overnight
  • 233+ people had died across the country before last night source
  • » Neither side backing down an inch: With reports suggesting that the country’s parliament building in Tripoli has been burned to the ground, there is certainly no messing around when it comes to these protests. They’re not lot Egypt’s. They’re bloody, they’re violent and both sides are using force to show themselves. One protester, talking to Al Jazeera, set the scene as such: “We are in Tripoli, there are chants [directed at Gaddafi]: ‘Where are you? Where are you? Come out if you’re a man.'” A very bring-it-on type of environment, to say the least.
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

21 Feb 2011 00:33

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World: Not so much: Saif Gaddafi’s speech goes over like a lead balloon

  • He is worse than his father. His claims about the establishment of Islamic emirates in the country is not true at all.
  • A local Muslim Brotherhood leader in Libya • Disputing the comments made by Mummar Gaddafi’s son, Saif, earlier this evening, which suggested that Islamists would cause civil war if the protests continued in the country. Meanwhile, Obama’s folks have been fishing for “clarification” what Saif meant. We can already tell you what he meant: He meant to impress us all with the way he inherited his crazy from his dad. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

20 Feb 2011 18:44

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World: Saif Gaddafi: Libya will be divided like North and South Korea

  • The country will be divided like North and South Korea, we will see each other through a fence. You will wait in line for months for a visa.
  • Saif Al Islam Gaddafi • Offering a pretty dark assessment of what will happen in his country if revolution continues. Again, WTF? source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

20 Feb 2011 18:32

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World: Gaddafi’s kid warns of bloody civil war in post-Gaddafi Libya

  • A tragically messed-up moment: Gaddafi’s kid, Saif El Islam Gaddafi, is making some pretty wild claims about what’s going to happen in the country: “Libya is not like Egypt, it is tribes and clans, it is not a society with parties. Everyone knows their duties and this may cause civil wars. Libya is not Tunisia and Egypt. Libya has oil – that has united the whole of Libya.” Saif also says that the death toll is 14! Just 14! Are you kidding? Not even the most conservative estimate is ten times that. Unfortunately, few journalists are on the ground to refute these claims. (above tweet from Al Jazeera English’s Ayman Mohyeldin) source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

20 Feb 2011 16:32

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World: Update on Libya: What’s currently happening in the country?

  • There’s a lot going on here, and there is much to parse. There isn’t a clear picture of the death toll in the country, with Human Rights Watch saying that at least 173 people have died in the violence, while other tallies have been much higher. Word is even spreading that some of the protests have shown up outside of Gaddafi’s stronghold of Tripoli. But none of it is as bad as it’s been in Benghazi. “It’s like a guerrilla war,” one female resident of Benghazi said of the violence. “There is a battle going on, and sometimes one part is controlled by the protesters, and sometimes other parts are. There are corpses in the street.” More items of interest:
  • one Reuters is reporting – but cannot independently confirm due to the limits on free speech in the country – that Libya’s hold on Benghazi has weakened to the point where protesters mostly control the streets.
  • two The Arab League’s permanent Libyan representative, Abdel Moneim al-Honi, has resigned in protest of the actions taking place in his home country.  “I am joining the ranks of the revolution,” Honi said.
  • three The BBC’s Jon Williams talks about the hard road for journalists covering Libya this weekend: “When we’re not on the ground, we have to work twice as hard to make sure that we’re telling all sides of the story.” source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 

20 Feb 2011 12:55

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World: A girl named “Facebook”: Egyptian family shows their gratitude

  • ‘Facebook’ received many gifts from the youth who were overjoyed by her arrival and the new name. A name [Facebook] that shocked the entire world.
  • An article from Al-Ahram • Revealing that an Egyptian family had named their newborn girl “Facebook.” We’re guessing that Mark Zuckerberg didn’t expect this to happen when he was sitting around his dorm room, trying to think up an elaborate way to meet girls and screw over the Winklevi. Which goes against the company’s whole stay-out-of-this-mess mantra. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

20 Feb 2011 11:32

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World: China quickly quashes modest “Jasmine” protests of its own

  • 100+ Chinese protesters have been arrested by the government in the wake of an anonymous call for protests
  • 13 number of cities where the protests were expected; police have been out in full force in each of them
  • no China won’t let people talk about “Jasmine” online, and protest discussion has been prevented source
  • » China doesn’t screw around: The pro-democracy “Jasmine Revolution” protests, inspired by the situations in the Middle East, haven’t drawn very large crowds. But China’s elaborate and sophisticated response has basically been designed to discourage dissent against the state, making the road the anonymous protesters took much harder than, say, in Egypt.
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

19 Feb 2011 21:23

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U.S.: Are the Tea Partiers in Madison really that big a deal, anyway?

  • So how many Tea Partiers went to Madison today? While these crowds look reasonably large in size, they don’t appear to hold a candle to the 40,000+ union protesters going around Madison today. These arial shots seem to suggest much smaller crowds of Tea Partiers than pro-union folks. But guess which ones CNN decided to cover today? Take a guess. (photo from Americans for Prosperity’s Flickr stream) source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 
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