Current Affairs

July 09, 2011

Prince William and Kate Show Difference Between Socialism and Capitalism

Good comment by BBC announcer on ABC, which I paraphrase from memory:

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June 08, 2011

Theatre Ejects Texter, Puts Her Rant on Screen

Gotta' love this. 

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June 01, 2011

Police Reluctantly Arrest Thief, After Victim Posts Photos and Location Online

Police in the real world aren't much like those on CSI, are they?

A man used theft-prevention software on his stolen laptop to provide police with photos and the location of the thief, but the police refused to act until supporters raised a commotion online.

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May 27, 2011

Marine Survives Two Tours in Iraq, SWAT Kills Him - Hit & Run : Reason Magazine

Joseguerena_thumb Shocking story from Arizona, where a SWAT team busted into a familiy's home, shot a Marine veteran of two tours in the Iraq war, with no criminal record, then prevented paramedics from treating him for a hour as he lay bleeding to death. 

Police have repeatedly changed their story, saying at first that the Marine shot at them, only to find that the safety on his rifle was still on.

Police complained of misleading information in media reports, but have now had the search warrants and other evidence in the case sealed -- except for items they selectively release to the media. 

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May 04, 2011

Twitters Ask: "Who is Osama bin Laden"

 
Another reason to despair for democracy.

From Jamelle Bouile, via Ezra Klein's "The kids are not all right". 

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May 03, 2011

US Troops were Yards from Osama bin Laden House in 2008 – WikiLeaks

Interesting sidebars keep emerging after bin Landen's death.

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Bin Laden's Hiding Place Predicted 2 Years Ago | LAT

Here's an interesting sidebar hidden in the huge volume of Bin Laden coverage: UCLA geographers Thomas Gillespie and John Agnew and a class of undergraduates published a 2009 paper correctly calculating his hiding place two years ago. 

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May 01, 2011

Osama bin Laden was killed by U.S. forces | BBC & CNN

From CNN & BBC

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April 24, 2011

Sweden's Easter Witches

From a Time.com gallery of things you don't know about Easter:

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February 07, 2011

Examining Scientology

Two items explore Scientology's extreme behavior and ask whether it is a cult.

Writer-director Paul Haggis quit Scientology after 34 years as a church member, and discusses that in a lengthy New Yorker magazine article, including the church demanding that he disown family members that were non-believers, the hundreds of thousands of dollars the church required, and the training rituals, excerpted below.

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