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22 Mar 2011 14:21

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World: Released NYT journalists recount arrest horror

  • I heard in Arabic, ‘shoot them,’ and we all thought it was over.
  • New York Times foreign correspondent Anthony Shadid • Reflecting on his arrest, as well as his three NYT compatriots, at the hands of pro-Gaddafi forces in Libya. The story seems to indicate a reluctance Gaddafi’s people had to actually make good on that remark and shoot the journalists; upon realizing they were Americans, they thankfully scuttled that plan. Lynsey Addario got the worst treatment, having “every inch of [her] body” groped by the pro-Gaddafi soldiers, while photographer Tyler Hicks was threatened with decapitation. So, all in all, a pretty sickening story, and one that we hope people remember when somebody is mocking a journalist on the ground for feeling threatened. These are real dangers, folks. source

08 Mar 2011 13:37

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World: North Korea just wants these folks to talk it over with their families, honest

  • 31 North Koreans who’re presently in the South; unsurprisingly, the North wants them all back ahead of any further disarmament talks
  • four of the North Koreans are open defectors; the North demands they attend a meeting to confirm this decision to their families source
  • » The South says no dice: And for a very good reason, to boot. North Korea, for all the jokes westerners crack about its diminutive, insane leader, is no laughing matter for those who want out. Right now around 200,000 North Koreans are believed to be in concentration camps (testimony from a rare escapee here, it’s long and brutal but worth watching) worthy of the legacy of the term – medical experimentation, gas chambers, death by starvation, the whole lot. The threat of having one’s family sent to the camps (children born in the camps are forced to live their entire lives, however short, never knowing of the world outside) is the state’s major deterrent to defection. As such, dragging these four defectors in to confirm their defection to their families is essentially an elaborate, unspoken threat, along the lines of “come back, or they and their young will rot in prison for as long as they’re able to.” This is the sort of terrible dilemma that a nation is forced to make when up against a state under such villainous command.

14 Aug 2010 13:19

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U.S.: The system works: Judge-threatening shock jock Hal Turner convicted

  • thenUltra-bat@(&(@-insane radio shock jock Hal Turner threw this nugget out there after a ruling against a (now-overturned) handgun ban in Chicago: “Let me be the first to say this plainly: These judges deserve to be killed.” (!!!)
  • nowTurner was then arrested, and now he’s been convicted for the incendiary speech. “There is no place in society for threatening federal judges with violence. Period,” said U.S. attorney Patrick J.Fitzgerald. source

24 Jul 2010 10:47

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World: North Korea and their famous style of overreaction fail to disappoint

  • The army and people of the [North] will legitimately counter with their powerful nuclear deterrence the largest-ever nuclear war exercises.
  • A message from North Korea’s National Defense Commission • Regarding the building tension over the United States’ war exercises with South Korea. Yeah, they want to pull nukes out just because the U.S. and South Korea plan to begin Operation Invincible Spirit, a series of troop exercises, starting tomorrow. Of course, if North Korea had kept a cool head over the last however many years, would the war exercises even be necessary? source

29 Mar 2010 20:22

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U.S.: Did some YouTube user threaten to kill Eric Cantor?

  • YES and this time it wasn’t
    a stray bullet source

16 Dec 2009 22:19

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Tech: Fake Steve Jobs’ “Operation Chokehold” worthy of a FCC response

  • Threats of this nature are serious and we caution the public to use common sense and good judgment when accessing the Internet from their commercial mobile devices. To purposely try to disrupt or negatively impact a network with ill-intent is irresponsible and presents a significant public safety concern.
  • FCC Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau chief Jamie Barnett • Giving Fake Steve Jobs’ super-amusing mass-iPhone-overuse threat some steam by actually commenting on it. Fake Steve (a.k.a. Daniel Lyons) is amused. So are we. Surprisingly, the whole debacle has generated massive amounts of press for the site and AT&T in general, because, well, it’s funny. source

15 Nov 2009 21:25

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Politics: Andrew Sullivan’s blog reportedly has an obsessive reader (not us)

  • Sources with access to Palin have indeed told to me that the Wasilla whack-job was an obsessive reader of this blog as it dared to ask factual questions about her past that could be easily answered.
  • Super-blogger (and SFB fave) Andrew Sullivan • Posting yesterday about Sarah Palin, who reportedly wanted to sue Sullivan for statements he made regarding the birth of her daughter, Trig. We really like Gawker’s account of the whole thing, but are big fans of the way Andy himself worded word of the potential libel suit, too. • source
 

04 Oct 2009 11:52

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U.S.: Yuck. Office McJerkbag threatened to break a skateboarder’s arm

  • We are not making excuses for the kid. He should not have spoken that way too the officer, because that’s asking for trouble. But, you know, he wasn’t resisting arrest according to the video. And the officer threatened to snap his arm like a twig. Skateboarding is not a crime. But, fortunately for the officer’s career, it is on video.source

30 Sep 2009 09:09

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Offbeat, Tech: Google search results are serious business

Really? You’re going to threaten a lawsuit because someone’s ranked higher than you on Google search? Worst e-mail idea evah. source

14 Jul 2009 10:10

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U.S.: Obama’s threatening a veto of his defense spending bill. Here’s why.

  • $1.75 billion cost of the last-minute addition to Obama’s defense spending bill, which adds seven costly F-22s back into the mix source