LOLZcats
Denizens of Anonymous defaced a website run by the Westboro Baptist Church on Thursday during a live radio interview.
An ongoing spat between the controversial church of GodHatesFags fame and the loosely knit hacking collective began last weekend with a message threatening hacks against websites that, depending on who you believe, was posted either by the Church itself or a faction of Anonymous. Another faction of Anonymous distanced itself from the plan, categorising Westboro Baptist Church as trolls looking for attention.
Whatever the origins of the row, WBC's site has been subject to ongoing attacks over recent days, and the topic served as suitable fodder for an item on the David Pakman show. A member of Anonymous faced off against Shirley Phelps-Roper of the Westboro Baptist Church.
Puppet Masters
Encrypted emails aired after 9 month brute force crack
An IT expert for British Airways has been found guilty of using his position to plan a terrorist attack on behalf of the Yemen-based radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, according to news reports.
Rajib Karim, 31, of Newcastle, used his job as a software engineer for the UK airline to aid attacks being planned by Awlaki, who is accused of having links to the to the attempted shoe-bombing of a plane over Detroit on Christmas 2009. The plot came to light after experts from the Metropolitan Police Service Counter Terrorism Command spent nine months cracking 300 encrypted emails found on Karim's hard drive.
An IT expert for British Airways has been found guilty of using his position to plan a terrorist attack on behalf of the Yemen-based radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, according to news reports.
Rajib Karim, 31, of Newcastle, used his job as a software engineer for the UK airline to aid attacks being planned by Awlaki, who is accused of having links to the to the attempted shoe-bombing of a plane over Detroit on Christmas 2009. The plot came to light after experts from the Metropolitan Police Service Counter Terrorism Command spent nine months cracking 300 encrypted emails found on Karim's hard drive.
© DangerousMinds
“Hello, Anonymous calling for the enemies of democracy. Are the Koch Brothers in?”
“Hello, Anonymous calling for the enemies of democracy. Are the Koch Brothers in?”
The Libyan government took journalists to Zawiya on Sunday morning.
But instead of a show of government force, reporters saw opposition fighters manning the barricades in the city centre and flying their flag.
The UN Security Council voted unanimously on Saturday to impose sanctions on Col Gaddafi's regime.
Eastern Libya has fallen to the uprising, which began on 16 February in the wake of revolutions which toppled the long-serving leaders of neighbouring Tunisia and Egypt.
However the Libyan capital Tripoli remains under the control of Col Gaddafi, who is facing the biggest challenge to his 41-year rule.
At least 1,000 people are believed to have been killed in nearly two weeks of violence.
The UN refugee agency (UNHCR) says nearly 100,000 migrants have fled to neighbouring Tunisia and Egypt in the past week.
Mohammed Ghannouchi was seen as too closely linked to the old regime
He was speaking at a news conference in Tunis, after making a lengthy speech defending his record in government.
Mr Ghannouchi is seen as being too close to former President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, who was toppled in an uprising last month.
Mr Ghannouchi, 69, had served under Mr Ben Ali since 1989.
"After having taken more than one week of thinking, I became convinced, and my family shared my conviction, and decided to resign. It is not fleeing my responsibilities; I have been shouldering my responsibilities since 14 January [when Mr Ben Ali fled]," he said.
"I am not ready to be the person who takes decisions that would end up causing casualties," he added.
"This resignation will serve Tunisia, and the revolution and the future of Tunisia," he added.
It is exactly what the protesters had been demanding. Mohammed Ghannouchi, had served under the country's old dictatorship, and as far as they were concerned, until he went, their revolution was unfinished.
The question now is whether this resignation will be enough to quell the violence. As the news has spread, people have been taking to the streets, chanting and singing of victory.
U.S., EU weigh no-fly zone; rebel-held cities try to repel Gadhafi loyalists
Tripoli, Libya - Forces loyal to Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi were massed near the Tunisian border on Tuesday, residents said, and the United States said it was moving warships and air forces closer to Libya.
Residents feared pro-Gadhafi forces were preparing an attack to regain control of Nalut, about 60 km (38 miles) from the Tunisian border in western Libya, from protesters seeking an end to Gadhafi's rule.
On Monday, foreign powers talked openly of imposing a "no-fly" zone or making other military moves against leader Gadhafi, as his forces used tanks and fighter jets to strike at rebel-held cities nearest the capital.
The U.S. said all options were open, including the use of warplanes to patrol the North African nation's skies and protect citizens threatened by their leader.
Pentagon and military officials told NBC News it appears "unlikely now" that the U.S. military will have to intervene, but "prudent moves" were being taken just in case.
© Ben Curtis/AP
Soldiers and dozens of tanks from the Libyan military's elite Khamis Brigade, led by Gadhafi's youngest son Khamis Gadhafi, take positions on Monday about 6 miles outside Zawiya.
Soldiers and dozens of tanks from the Libyan military's elite Khamis Brigade, led by Gadhafi's youngest son Khamis Gadhafi, take positions on Monday about 6 miles outside Zawiya.
Tripoli, Libya - Forces loyal to Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi were massed near the Tunisian border on Tuesday, residents said, and the United States said it was moving warships and air forces closer to Libya.
Residents feared pro-Gadhafi forces were preparing an attack to regain control of Nalut, about 60 km (38 miles) from the Tunisian border in western Libya, from protesters seeking an end to Gadhafi's rule.
On Monday, foreign powers talked openly of imposing a "no-fly" zone or making other military moves against leader Gadhafi, as his forces used tanks and fighter jets to strike at rebel-held cities nearest the capital.
The U.S. said all options were open, including the use of warplanes to patrol the North African nation's skies and protect citizens threatened by their leader.
Pentagon and military officials told NBC News it appears "unlikely now" that the U.S. military will have to intervene, but "prudent moves" were being taken just in case.
© Wikimedia
Mugshot of Sirhan Bishara Sirhan taken after his arrest for assassinating Robert F. Kennedy in 1968
Mugshot of Sirhan Bishara Sirhan taken after his arrest for assassinating Robert F. Kennedy in 1968
More than four decades after Sen. Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated, his convicted murderer wants to go free for a crime he says he can't remember.
It is not old age or some memory-snatching disease that has erased an act Sirhan Bishara Sirhan once said he committed "with 20 years of malice aforethought." It's been this way almost from the beginning. Hypnotists and psychologists, lawyers and investigators have tried to jog his memory with no useful result.
Now a new lawyer is on the case and he says his efforts have also failed.
"There is no doubt he does not remember the critical events," said William F. Pepper, the attorney who will argue for Sirhan's parole Wednesday. "He is not feigning it. It's not an act. He does not remember it."
In an effort to address the most under-served minority in a John Travolta film, a non-profit in Texas is launching a scholarship program for disadvantaged students. The Former Majority Association for Equality is offering a $500 scholarship to those who meet one eligibility requirement: "Male - No less than 25% Caucasian":
© Unknown
The application for a $500 scholarship from the Former Majority Association for Equality looks pretty much like all the others out there. Well, except for this eligibility requirement: "Male - No less than 25% Caucasian."
Yes, the Texas-based nonprofit organization has launched a scholarship for white men. Members of the group, which goes by FMAFE, say they aren't racist and "have no hidden agenda to promote racial bigotry or segregation," according to their Web site. Instead, they say their goal is to provide financial aid to white men who might not qualify for other scholarships.
Today, hundreds of thousands of people comprising a Main Street Movement - a coalition of students, the retired, union workers, public employees, and other middle class Americans - are in the streets, demonstrating against brutal cuts to public services and crackdowns on organized labor being pushed by conservative politicians. These lawmakers that are attacking collective bargaining and cutting necessary services like college tuition aid and health benefits for public workers claim that they have no choice but than to take these actions because both state and federal governments are in debt.
But it wasn't teachers, fire fighters, policemen, and college students that caused the economic recession that has devastated government budgets - it was Wall Street. And as middle class workers are being asked to sacrifice, the rich continue to rig the system, dodging taxes and avoiding paying their fair share.
In an interview with In These Times, Carl Gibson, the founder of US Uncut, which is organizing some of today's UK-inspired massive demonstrations against tax dodgers, explains that while ordinary Americans are being asked to sacrifice, major corporations continue to use the rigged tax code to avoid paying any federal taxes at all. As he says, if you have "one dollar" in your wallet, you're paying more than the "combined income tax liability of GE, ExxonMobil, Citibank, and the Bank of America":
© Unknown
In an interview with In These Times, Carl Gibson, the founder of US Uncut, which is organizing some of today's UK-inspired massive demonstrations against tax dodgers, explains that while ordinary Americans are being asked to sacrifice, major corporations continue to use the rigged tax code to avoid paying any federal taxes at all. As he says, if you have "one dollar" in your wallet, you're paying more than the "combined income tax liability of GE, ExxonMobil, Citibank, and the Bank of America":
Postage Stamp of the Sovereign Order
It seems unusual, but it's exactly what the staff of Foreign Policy has done to Seymour Hersh, following a lecture the venerated reporter gave at Georgetown University's campus in Doha, Qatar. You may know Hersh as the dogged investigator who exposed the My Lai Massacre during Vietnam. You may know him as the staff writer for the New Yorker who published some of the earliest pieces on Abu Ghraib in May 2004. You might even know him as the man derided and then vindicated for claiming that Dick Cheney was running a secret assassination squad right out of the vice president's office. (In truth, the squad was and is a bipartisan affair, initiated under Clinton and still operative under Obama.)
Yet, given the Foreign Policy staff's derisive commentary on Seymour's Jan. 17 talk, you would think he was some credulous rube midway through his first Dan Brown novel.
