His Facebook friends call him “an honorable man” who was just “being funny.” They say that “People are way to [sic] sensitive in this day and age.” But when Steve Kush, the executive director of Bernalillo County’s (New Mexico) Republican Party, went on a social media rampage during a local commissioners’ meeting about the minimum wage earlier this week, his party chairman, Frank Ruvelo, saw things differently.Seems his fellow Republicans did not appreciate what Kush said on Twitter and Facebook regarding a 19-year-old female at the meeting, “Nice hat Working America chick but damn you are a radical bitch.” Nor did it enjoy his remarks depicting the organization’s state director Chelsey Evans as “Uh oh another Working America chick,” or his observation that she had “nice boots…I know she makes more than min wage.” And they definitely didn’t find it too amusing when he declared that she “was hot enough to almost make me register democrat.”He’s currently suspended, indefinitely, without pay.”It was an ill-fated attempt at humor,” Kush told Watchdog.org Wednesday. “Do I regret it? Yes … I absolutely crossed the line.”Continue Reading… … Read More
Do e-readers inhibit reading comprehension?
In a viral YouTube video from October 2011 a 1-year-old girl sweeps her fingers across an iPad’s touchscreen, shuffling groups of icons. In the following scenes she appears to pinch, swipe and prod the pages of paper magazines as though they too were screens. When nothing happens, she pushes against her leg, confirming that her finger works just fine — or so a title card would have us believe.The girl’s father, Jean-Louis Constanza, presents “A Magazine Is an iPad That Does Not Work” as naturalistic observation — a Jane Goodall among the chimps moment — that reveals a generational transition. “Technology codes our minds,” he writes in the video’s description. “Magazines are now useless and impossible to understand, for digital natives” — that is, for people who have been interacting with digital technologies from a very early age.Continue Reading… … Read More
‘Less-than-lethal rounds’ shot at Gitmo inmates resisting transfer to solitary
The detainees used self-made weapons to resist the transfer, thus forcing guards to fire, the US military said in a statement.”Some detainees resisted with improvised weapons, and in response, four less-than-lethal rounds were fired,” Navy Captain Robert Durand said in a news release.Officials say no guards or detainees have been seriously injured.The reason for the move was explained because the detainees covered surveillance cameras, windows and partitions, preventing guards from observing them during a hunger strike that has been continuing for more than two months.”Round-the-clock monitoring is necessary to ensure security, order, and safety as detainees continued a prolonged hunger strike by refusing regular camp-provided meals,” Durand said.Over the years Guantanamo detainees participated in various forms of protests, Durand explained to RT, adding that this new coordinated effort has created an “unsafe situation.”“We made the decision to move detainees into individual cells based on the detainees’ continued efforts to block observation,” Durand stressed. “We recently determined that the risk to the health and security of certain detainees had reached an unacceptable level due to non-compliant behavior.”Each detainee’s physical and mental health has been evaluated after the sweep.“Detainees may continue to hunger strike as a form of protest,” Durand said, also adding that moving them into individual cells has allowed JTF to “ensure that detainees are not being coerced by other detainees to participate in the hunger strike.”Although Guantanamo authorities claim the detainees were resisting with “improvised weapons,” Cindy Panuco, a lawyer representing one of them told RT that the truth is still to be determined as “there is no way they could have any sort of weapons.”“That is interesting to find out they have makeshift weapons,” Panuco said. “Whenever we have gone down to visit our clients the only thing they are allowed are small ball-point inserts of a pen… almost like straws. That is pretty much all they are allowed. So I don’t see, especially given the invasive searches that were conducted in February, what kind of makeshift weapons the government is referring to.”She believes that isolation is just another effort to undermine solidarity among the prison population. “If they are together, if they are in a communal living space they can communicate and at least support each other and now that they are being isolated, it is another form of torment. To be taken away from your friends and comrades, who were there with you, makes it much more difficult to endure what is already a very difficult situation.”The detention camp at the Guantanamo Bay US Naval Base in Cuba holds 166 men, most of them captured more than a decade ago in different counter-terrorism operations.Saturday’s early-morning sweep took place in Camp 6, a medium-security building where 80 to 100 detainees lived in cells that open into communal bays where they could eat, pray and watch television together. As part of the hunger strike, prisoners have been refusing to let food carts enter some of the bays.Lawyers say most of Gitmo inmates are currently participating in the hunger strike. The US administration, however, is only acknowledging 43 cases, including 11 people who are being force-fed liquid nutrients through tubes inserted into their noses and down to their stomachs.The hunger strike began in February in protest to the seizure of personal items from detainees’ cells. Some prisoners told their lawyers that their Qurans had been mistreated during the cell searches, which the US military denied.Lawyers say the hunger strike is caused by the fact that most detainees are held there without being charged, overwhelmed by the depressing feeling they may never leave the prison.Obama pledged to close the facility at the start of his first term, but has failed to do it so far.For more on the Guantanamo Bay hunger strike, follow RT’s day-by-day timeline … Read More
Network of satellite guardians in space keep an eye out for natural disasters
Almost unknown to the public, a constellation of satellite guardians is flying overhead, and all it takes is a phone call for them to intervene when a country is hit by a storm, earthquake, tsunami or flood. Armed with cameras or ground radar, these Earth-observation satellites were sent into orbit…
Astrophysicists: Black hole awakens to swallow planet-sized object
Astrophysicists have witnessed the rare event of a black hole awakening from its slumber to snack on a planet-sized object in a galaxy 47 million light years away, the University of Geneva said Tuesday. The observation made using the European Space Agency’s INTEGRAL satellite project,…
Kurt Loder Reviews Olympus Has Fallen and Admission
When last seen on Hollywood soil, in the 2012
Red Dawn remake, evil North Korean invaders had touched
down in Spokane, Washington, where they were quickly butt-kicked by
a bunch of teenagers. Having learned nothing from that experience,
writes Kurt Loder, the Norks are now back, and in Olympus Has
Fallen, starring Gerald Butler and Morgan Freeman, they’ve
targeted the White House, into which they manage to blast their way
in just 13 minutes.
Admission, on the other hand, is a smarter movie than
the average romantic comedy, and while chugging along on the way to
its inexorable happy wrapup, it passes through some interesting
social territory, touching on issues of parenting, academic
priorities, and professional ethics. It’s also very funny in parts,
with bright performances by Tina Fey and Lily Tomlin. But the
comedy and the social observation don’t quite meld, and when the
movie’s over, you’re left feeling somewhat under-gratified. View this article.
… Read More
20 UN peacekeepers taken hostage by Syrian rebels in Golan Heights
A young fighter saying he was from the “Martyrs of Yarmouk” saidthe peacekeepers would not be set free until Syrian governmentforces withdrew from the village of Jamlah, a mile east of theceasefire link with the Israeli-occupied Golan, Reutersreports.”If no withdrawal is made within 24 hours we will treat them asprisoners,” he said, claiming the UN forces had collaboratedwith Syrian government troops to drive the fighters out of thevillage.After a video appeared on YouTube showing several armed-rebelfighters standing in front of two white armored vehicles bearingthe UN inscription with at least five peacekeepers inside, the UNconfirmed the incident.UN deputy spokesman Eduardo del Buey told reporters that”approximately 30 armed fighters stopped and detained about 20peacekeepers within the area of limitation.”"The UN observers were on a regular supply mission and werestopped near Observation Post 58, which had sustained damage andwas evacuated this past weekend following heavy combat in closeproximity, at Al Jamlah,” the United Nations said in astatement issued in New York.The UN Security Council demanded the peacekeepers immediaterelease. Russia’s UN envoy Vitaly Churkin said the seizure of theUN observers showed “gross disrespect for the UnitedNations.”“Right now there are negotiations between UN representativesand the captors and we hope that the [UN] personnel will bereleased immediately as the UNSC demands,” Churkinsaid.Mentioning an attack on Monday which killed 48 Syrian servicemenand nine Iraqi law enforcers, Churkin said the Golan incidentshowed “some people are trying very hard in order to extend thegeography of the Syrian conflict.”Human Rights watch said it was investigating the same rebelbrigade for its role in a videotaped execution of detained Syriansoldiers posted on the Internet on Tuesday.The capture of the UN observers points to how the situation onthe ground in Syria is getting out of control and all sides areunable to control armed groups on the ground, Karl Sharpo, a MiddleEast blogger, told RT. He further warned that that there is no wayof knowing whose hands outside aid will end up.“The lines on the ground are very fluid, distinctions don’t reallyapply and you can’t make sure the weapons end up in the intendedsites. Again if you look at the fact at what this incidentillustrates is the lack of control that any military authority onthe ground for the opposition or an outside political authority,doesn’t exercise the control it says it does,” Sharpo said.The incident follows a statement on Wednesday by the Arab Leagueoffering military supportto the Syrian rebels. Previously the League had only offered tosupport the Syrian opposition via humanitarian and diplomaticassistance.Arab League Secretary-General Nabil Elarby told a pressconference the Syrian Opposition Coalition had been formallyinvited to send a representative to attend a league meeting to beheld in Doha in April.The UK Foreign Secretary William Hague also announced onWednesday that Britain will increase non-lethal aid toanti-government forces in Syria. The $19.5 million dollar packagewill include armored vehicles, body armor, search and rescue,disease prevention and communication equipment.The Russian Foreign Ministry announced last week that anydecision to send aid to rebel fighters would intensify the two yearSyrian civil war by encouraging “extremists to seize power byforce.”Shortly after Israel warned the UN Security Council it could notbe expected to “stand idle” as the Syrian civil war expands beyondits borders, while Churkin said that armed groups operating out ofthe Golan were undermining regional security.“It’s of course something very dangerous they are doing bystaging armed activity from that area. It’s something which canundermine security between Syria and Israel. So whoever issupporting that kind of activity or approving it tacitly is playinga very dangerous game,” Churkin warned back on Monday.Israel captured the Golan Heights from Syria during the 1967war. The country agreed to return the land to Syria in return for apeace agreement that was rejected by the Arab world.During the 1973 Yom Kippur War, Syrian forces crossed theceasefire line into the Golan Heights in an attempt to retake theterritory. Syria’s troops were repelled by Israeli forces.Israel annexed the Golan in 1981, though they returned about 5percent of the territory to Syria. The land was merged into ademilitarized zone that is currently patrolled by UN peacekeepingforces. … Read More
