March 24, 2014

Jack Nicholson on ‘The Andy Griffith Show,’ twice

Maybe this is just values dissonance at work, but no amount of suspension of disbelief in the world can get me past the idea of a ranking law enforcement officer simply handing an abandoned baby over to a strange couple just on their say-so—not even in ‘60s small-town America, and least of all when the claim they’ve laid on the child is a explicit admission of horrifying negligence.

His second appearance was a meatier part in 1967, around the time he began making serious turns toward the weird, writing the script for Roger Corman’s bizarre attempt at counterculture pandering The Trip and appearing in the drugsploitation oddity Psych-Out. But in Andy Griffith’s season 8’s episode 7, Aunt Bee is called to serve as a juror and finds herself recast as Henry Fonda from 12 Angry Men. Nicholson plays the defendant. I suspect there’s loads of potential in this episode for a mashup with A Few Good Men.

http://dangerousminds.net/comments/jack_nicholson_on_the_andy_griffith_show_twice

March 24, 2014

Obama defends NSA spying in meeting with Chinese president

Source: Los Angeles Times

THE HAGUE, Netherlands — President Obama on Monday defended U.S. surveillance programs as serving national security rather than commercial interests, in a wide-ranging meeting with his Chinese counterpart on the sidelines of a nuclear summit.

In the private session with Chinese President Xi Jinping, Obama defended the National Security Agency’s espionage tactics days after news broke that the U.S. spy agency had tapped into Chinese telecommunication giant Huawei’s computer system. The revelation, stemming from documents leaked by NSA contractor Edward Snowden, appeared to undermine Obama’s regular complaint that Chinese companies conduct corporate espionage and intellectual property theft.

Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes said Xi raised the matter, which was reported by the New York Times and Der Spiegel on Saturday. The president countered that “the United States does not engage in espionage to gain a commercial advantage,” Rhodes said, adding that Obama said the U.S. believes there’s “a clear distinction between intelligence activities that have a national security purpose and intelligence activities that have a commercial purpose.”

Obama thanked the Chinese leader for welcoming First Lady Michelle Obama and their daughters on a trip to Beijing this week. Xi thanked Obama for U.S. help in trying to locate the missing Malaysia Airlines plane, which was carrying many Chinese passengers.

Read more: http://www.latimes.com/world/worldnow/la-fg-wn-obama-nsa-spying-chinese-president-20140324,0,3780214.story#ixzz2wtxXlMNp

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The Chinese don't seem to be too outraged over this...Maybe they just see it as "everyday business as usual?"

Does anyone still want to claim SnowWald are *NOT* specifically timing these true-but-not-that-shocking "gotcha" releases for maximum political damage? They're pretty predictable by this point now...

Just for laughs, I highly suggest DUers regularly check out Greenwald's twitter feed -- It's a dizzying, nonstop perpetual motion machine of circular logic on the Chinese story, the Russia issue, Russia Today, etc. etc...Only on twitter does Greenwald throw away the mask and be his true, unfiltered self -- It's very eye-opening....

March 24, 2014

WHY would Kathleen do such a thing over the phone? And why is it even news??

March 19, 2014

World War One weapon explodes, killing two

A shell or grenade buried in western Belgium since World War One, has exploded, killing two people.

At least two more were injured, one of whom is in critical condition.

The device was set off as workmen at a building site in Ypres were trying to dig it up.

A strategic city, Ypres was shelled by German forces for most of the war and unexploded weapons are often found there.

The area, where a factory is being built, has been sealed off and local explosives experts have been brought in.

It is thought that thousands of explosives from the 1914-1918 war still lie buried in and around Ypres, yet to be discovered.

Every year the former battlefields of western Belgium throw up hundreds of Great War armaments. Most are destroyed without incident by a special Belgian army bomb squad.

Despite that, several hundred people have been killed in similar explosions since the end of the war.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26654314

March 19, 2014

NSA top lawyer says tech giants knew about data collection

The top lawyer for the National Security Agency and others from the Obama administration made it clear to the US government's independent oversight board that tech titans knew about government surveillance while it was going on.

NSA general counsel Rajesh De told the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board on Wednesday that tech titans were aware that the NSA was collecting communications and related metadata both for the NSA's "PRISM" program and for "upstream" communications crossing the Internet. PRISM is a surveillance program designed to collect and process "foreign intelligence" that passes through American servers.

The law that authorized the program was 2008's Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act. The Guardian reported that when asked if collection of communications and associated metadata occurred with the "full knowledge and assistance of any company from which information is obtained," De said, "Yes."

De explained to the board that "PRISM was an internal government term that as the result of leaks became the public term." Data collection under PRISM, he said, was a "compulsory legal process, that any recipient company would receive."

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57620600-38/nsa-top-lawyer-says-tech-giants-knew-about-data-collection/?Privacy

The other shoe drops...I've said from day one that not only did corporate America know, they were willing partners...

March 19, 2014

Holder: We're on track to meet NSA reform deadline

The Justice Department and the National Security Agency are on track to meet President Barack Obama's call for officials to come up with plans to revamp or replace an NSA program which gathers massive amounts of data on telephone calls made and received by Americans in order to help investigate possible terroist plots, Attorney General Eric Holder said Wednesday.

"We will meet the deadline that the president has set," Holder said, referring to the March 28 deadline Obama laid out in a speech in January promising reforms to U.S. intelligence gathering practices.

National Security Agency Director Keith Alexander said in a February 14 speech that "ideas" were headed to the White House the following week, more than a month ahead of the deadline.

In Obama's January speech, he called for an end to the NSA's bulk collection of telephone metadata. He urged replacing the program with one that stored the data with telephone providers, or with a third-party created for that purpose, or that used other capabilities to provide a similar ability to gain insight into terrorist plots.


http://www.politico.com/blogs/under-the-radar/2014/03/holder-were-on-track-to-meet-nsa-reform-deadline-185375.html

March 19, 2014

Malaysia's Culture Of Secrecy Is A Huge Obstacle In The Plane Search

You almost have to feel bad for the Malaysian government. For years, the world has largely looked the other way from its corrupt and oppressive political system thanks to its impressive economic performance. But now, the search for a missing plane—from an airline that, by the way, has one of the region’s best safety records—has tarnished the country’s reputation in just a week.

While the disappearance is genuinely baffling, and I think it’s far from clear that any country could have done a better job at finding the plane, the search is already being described as an illustrative example of the country’s opaque and dysfunctional political culture.

Then again, you can’t feel too bad for the government. While Malaysia’s lack of transparency isn’t the reason the plane hasn’t been found yet, it’s clearly not helping. Officials have been heavily criticized for waiting four days before publicly disclosing that military radar may have picked up signs that the plane was diverted from its course.

Vietnam says it is scaling back its participation in the search after complaining of “insufficient information” from the Malaysians. China, home to more than two-thirds of the plane’s passengers, has also criticized the “confusion” of the Malaysian response.

http://www.businessinsider.com/culture-of-secrecy-malaysia-2014-3

March 18, 2014

Robot writes LA Times earthquake breaking news article

The Los Angeles Times was the first newspaper to publish a story about an earthquake on Monday - thanks to a robot writer.

Journalist and programmer Ken Schwencke created an algorithm that automatically generates a short article when an earthquake occurs.

Mr Schwencke told Slate magazine that it took around three minutes for the story to appear online.

The LA Times is a pioneer in the technology which draws on trusted sources - such as the US Geological Survey - and places data into a pre-written template.

As well as the earthquake report, it also uses another algorithm to generate stories about crime in the city - with human editors deciding which ones need greater attention.

Other news organisations have experimented with algorithm-based reporting methods in other areas, particularly sports.

The generated story does not replace the journalist, Mr Schwencke argued, but instead allows available data to be quickly gathered and disseminated.

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-26614051

What's that word when you're very, very impressed with technological advances, yet scared shitless at the same time??

March 18, 2014

The Usefulness of Useless Knowledge

“The real enemy is the man who tries to mold the human spirit so that it will not dare to spread its wings.”

In an age obsessed with practicality, productivity, and efficiency, I frequently worry that we are leaving little room for abstract knowledge and for the kind of curiosity that invites just enough serendipity to allow for the discovery of ideas we didn’t know we were interested in until we are, ideas that we may later transform into new combinations with applications both practical and metaphysical.

This concern, it turns out, is hardly new. In The Usefulness of Useless Knowledge (PDF), originally published in the October 1939 issue of Harper’s, American educator Abraham Flexner explores this dangerous tendency to forgo pure curiosity in favor of pragmatism — in science, in education, and in human thought at large — to deliver a poignant critique of the motives encouraged in young minds, contrasting those with the drivers that motivated some of history’s most landmark discoveries.


We hear it said with tiresome iteration that ours is a materialistic age, the main concern of which should be the wider distribution of material goods and worldly opportunities. The justified outcry of those who through no fault of their own are deprived of opportunity and a fair share of worldly goods therefore diverts an increasing number of students from the studies which their fathers pursued to the equally important and no less urgent study of social, economic, and governmental problems. I have no quarrel with this tendency. The world in which we live is the only world about which our senses can testify. Unless it is made a better world, a fairer world, millions will continue to go to their graves silent, saddened, and embittered. I have myself spent many years pleading that our schools should become more acutely aware of the world in which their pupils and students are destined to pass their lives. Now I sometimes wonder whether that current has not become too strong and whether there would be sufficient opportunity for a full life if the world were emptied of some of the useless things that give it spiritual significance; in other words, whether our conception of what .is useful may not have become too narrow to be adequate to the roaming and capricious possibilities of the human spirit.

Flexner goes on to explore the question from two points of view — the scientific and the humanistic, or spiritual — and recounts a conversation with legendary entrepreneur and Kodak founder George Eastman, in which the two debate who “the most useful worker in science in the world” is. Eastman points to radio pioneer Guglielmo Marconi, but Flexner stumps Eastman by arguing that, despite his invention, Marconi’s impact on improving human life was “practically negligible.” His explanation bespeaks a familiar subject — combinatorial creativity and the additive nature of invention:

http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/07/27/the-usefulness-of-useless-knowledge/

http://library.ias.edu/files/UsefulnessHarpers.pdf

March 18, 2014

Vietnam vet to receive long-delayed Medal of Honor

MELBOURNE, Fla. — Melvin Morris, a highly decorated retired Army sergeant first class, will receive another recognition Tuesday — the Medal of Honor.

Morris, 72, is among 24 — only three of whom are living — who will receive the highest honor of bravery from President Barack Obama during a special ceremony at the White House. The veterans being recognized served during World War II and the Korean and Vietnam wars.

The Medal of Honor is awarded to members of the Armed Forces who distinguish themselves conspicuously by gallantry above and beyond the call of duty while engaged in an action against an enemy of the United States.

STORY: Obama to award Medals of Honor to overlooked veterans

The mass awarding of medals has its roots back in 2002 when Congress ordered a review of the war records of Jewish and Hispanic veterans to see whether any might have been passed over for the Medal of Honor because of anti-Semitism or racism. The review was later expanded to include African-Americans.

Slim choices

Career choices were slim for black men in Oklahoma in the 1950s. Morris, born and raised in the farming town of Okmulgee, figured he could work in the fields, maybe in carpentry.

Or join the military.

Morris signed up with the Oklahoma Army National Guard in 1959. Shortly after, he asked to join the active duty Army.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/03/17/vietnam-vet-to-receive-long-delayed-medal-of-honor/6535693/