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In early May, White House counterterrorism adviser John Brennan gave a speech in which he acknowledged the existence of the targeted killing program, defended it as legal, and argued that it almost always only kills bad guys. So the CIA’s argument here is: Just because a high-ranking public official gives a speech explaining how awesome and effective the targeted killing program is doesn’t mean the program’s existence isn’t a secret. It’s a state secret despite the fact the White House likes bragging about it.
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In contrast, the poor — tens of millions of people here in the U.S. and billions of people worldwide — often have no option but cash, and pay dearly because of it. In a recent piece for Foreign Policy, Vishnu Sridharan of the New America Foundation writes that cash-based economies “harm the poor by heightening the risks they face when carrying money and fueling government corruption and inefficiency.” Imagine literally having your life savings under your mattress or folded into a coffee can, vulnerable to fire, thieves, drunken relatives or nagging neighbors. Imagine having to ride the bus for hours to settle a bill, or traveling for days to deliver funds to a relative. Your already fragile finances can also get hammered by outrageous fees charged by check-cashing services or astronomical interest rates levied by payday lenders.
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Sure, Ken Bennett says he’s the man in charge of deciding whether President Obama is eligible to be on Arizona’s ballot in November, but the response from people in Hawaii’s government has been: Prove it. In essence, they’re giving Bennett a taste of his own medicine, making him jump through a series of hoops to prove he has the legal authority to investigate the matter, much the same way the birthers have made Hawaii prove time and time again that the president is indeed a natural born citizen of the United States.
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Who would have thought when a Hong Kong businessman created a cheap, all-plastic camera for the masses in 1981, that it would eventually inspire a retro-photography revolution with a cult-like following among photographers worldwide. Often imitated in the fast-paced blitz of 21st-century digital imaging (think Instagram, Hipstamatic, Snapseed, et al), Holga comes from an anti-technology, analog aesthetic that uses, *gasp*, actual film (you know, that celluloid-based, light-sensitive stuff made popular in the 20th century). So when I unexpectedly got my hands on a Holga 135 (the smaller cousin of the original 120mm Holga), I thought what better place to take it out for a spin than the China pavilion at Walt Disney World’s Epcot — an homage to Holga’s auspicious beginnings 31 years ago. (via Meet Holga - OrlandoSentinel.com)
Anonymous is taking credit for a confirmed breach of security at the U.S. Department of Justice, although the exact contents of the data bounty are not yet known. “Today we are releasing 1.7 GB of data that used to belong to the United States Bureau of Justice, until now,” reads an Anonymous press release, referring to the Department of Justice. “Within the booty you may find lots of shiny things such as internal emails, and the entire database dump.” The hacktivist collective has been known to make bold claims, but a Department of Justice spokeswoman confirmed to Reuters that Anonymous members did indeed access a server that hosts the Department’s statistical data, including cybersecurity records.
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Happiness, hit her like a train on a track
Coming towards her, stuck still no turning back
She hid around corners and she hid under beds
She killed it with kisses and from it she fled
Two Democratic consultants who claim they supplied Arianna Huffington and Ken Lerer with the idea for the Huffington Post have filed an amended version of their lawsuit, saying emails and other documents they obtained through discovery show how the defendants appropriated the concept and attempted to cover their tracks.
In the new filing, the plaintiffs, Daou and Boyce, accuse Huffington and Lerer of playing a double game with them in late 2004 and early 2005, as plans for the website were coming together.
“[A]t the same time as Huffington and Lerer were soliciting Boyce’s and Daou’s ideas and plans, telling them that they were building together what would become The Huffington Post, and shaking hands with Boyce and Daou in a manifestation of their business relationship, we now know that Huffington and Lerer were secretly sending Plaintiffs’ ideas to other individuals and developing their own business venture…while excluding them from ownership and control,” reads the complaint.
