firehose

NEW YORK—Author Chuck Klosterman reportedly cornered a guy who was wearing a Dio shirt at a party Thursday evening and dominated an exhaustive discussion on the metal band, addressing the group’s fantasy themes, deconstructing lyrics, and expo...

A “WikiLeaks” graphic is displayed on a laptop. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews)

The debate in the media, and in political circles over Edward Snowden—Right or Wrong—often doubles back on references to Pfc. Manning, who was sentenced to thirty-five years in prison on Wednesday. Too often (that is, most of the time), the value and import of the Manning/WikiLeaks disclosures are ignored or dismissed, just as Snowden’s NSA scoops are often derided as “nothing new.”

So for those who either suffer from memory loss or ignorance on this particular score, here is a partial accounting of some of the important revelations in the Manning leak, drawn from my book—with Kevin Gosztola—on the Manning case, Truth and Consequences (the e-book just now updated to include the trial, the verdict, this week’s sentencing and reactions).

The revelations below were compiled for the book in March 2011—many others followed, including the important Gitmo files (see my piece about them) in April 2011.  Here is a New York Times take on just part of those Gitmo files: "What began as a jury-rigged experiment after the 2001 terrorist attacks now seems like an enduring American institution, and the leaked files show why, by laying bare the patchwork and contradictory evidence that in many cases would never have stood up in criminal court or a military tribunal."  So even this accounting below is far from complete.

And let’s not forget what started it all: the “Collateral Murder” video.

First, just a very partial list from “Cablegate” (keep in mind, this does not include many other bombshells that caused a stir in smaller nations abroad):

• Yemeni president lied to his own people, claiming his military carried out air strikes on militants actually done by the US. All part of giving US full rein in country against terrorists.

• Details on Vatican hiding big sex abuse cases in Ireland.

• US tried to get Spain to curb its probes of Gitmo torture and rendition.

• Egyptian torturers trained by FBI—although allegedly to teach the human rights issues.

• State Dept. memo: US-backed 2009 coup in Honduras was “illegal and unconstitutional.”

• Cables on Tunisia appear to help spark revolt in that country. The country’s ruling elite described as “The Family,” with Mafia-like skimming throughout the economy. The country’s first lady may have made massive profits off a private school.

• US knew all about massive corruption in Tunisia back in 2006 but went on supporting the government anyway, making it the pillar of its North Africa policy.

• Cables showed the UK promised in 2009 to protect US interests in the official Chilcot inquiry on the start of the Iraq war.

* Oil giant Shell claims to have “inserted staff” and fully infiltrated Nigeria's government.

• US pressured the European Union to accept GM—genetic modification, that is.

• Washington was misled by our own diplomats on Russia-Georgia showdown.

• Extremely important historical document finally released in full: Ambassador April Glaspie’s cable from Iraq in 1990 on meeting with Saddam Hussein before Kuwait invasion.

• The UK sidestepped a ban on housing cluster bombs. Officials concealed from Parliament how the US is allowed to bring weapons on to British soil in defiance of treaty.

• The New York Times: “From hundreds of diplomatic cables, Afghanistan emerges as a looking-glass land where bribery, extortion and embezzlement are the norm and the honest man is a distinct outlier.”

• Afghan vice president left country with $52 million “in cash.”

• Shocking levels of US spying at the United Nations (beyond what was commonly assumed) and intense use of diplomats abroad in intelligence-gathering roles.

• Potential environmental disaster kept secret by the US when a large consignment of highly enriched uranium in Libya came close to cracking open and leaking radioactive material into the atmosphere.

• US used threats, spying, and more to try to get its way at last year’s crucial climate conference in Copenhagen.

* American and British diplomats fear Pakistan's nuclear weapons program — with poor security — could lead to fissile material falling into the hands of terrorists or a devastating nuclear exchange with India.

• Hundreds of cables detail US use of diplomats as “sales” agents, more than previously thought, centering on jet rivalry of Boeing vs. Airbus. Hints of corruption and bribes.

• Millions in US military aid for fighting Pakistani insurgents went to other gov’t uses (or stolen) instead.

• Israel wanted to bring Gaza to the ”brink of collapse.”

• The US secret services used Turkey as a base to transport terrorism suspects as part of its extraordinary rendition program.

• As protests spread in Egypt, cables revealed that strong man Suleiman was at center of government’s torture programs, causing severe backlash for Mubarak after he named Suleiman vice president during the revolt. Other cables revealed or confirmed widespread Mubarak regime corruption, police abuses and torture, and claims of massive Mubarak famiiy fortune, significantly influencing media coverage and US response.

Now, an excerpt from our book on just small aspect of the Iraq war cables. As I noted, this doesn’t even include the release of the “Collateral Murder” video earlier.

Al Jazeera suggested that the real bombshell was the US allowing Iraqis to torture detainees. Documents revealed that US soldiers sent 1,300 reports to headquarters with graphic accounts, including a few about detainees beaten to death. Some US generals wanted our troops to intervene, but Pentagon chiefs disagreed, saying these assaults should only be reported, not stopped. At a time the US was declaring that no torture was going on, there were forty-one reports of such abuse still happening “and yet the US chose to turn its back.”

The New York Times report on the torture angle included this: “The six years of reports include references to the deaths of at least six prisoners in Iraqi custody, most of them in recent years. Beatings, burnings and lashings surfaced in hundreds of reports, giving the impression that such treatment was not an exception. In one case, Americans suspected Iraqi Army officers of cutting off a detainee’s fingers and burning him with acid. Two other cases produced accounts of the executions of bound detainees.

And while some abuse cases were investigated by the Americans, most noted in the archive seemed to have been ignored, with the equivalent of an institutional shrug: soldiers told their officers and asked the Iraqis to investigate…. That policy was made official in a report dated May 16, 2005, saying that ‘if US forces were not involved in the detainee abuse, no further investigation will be conducted until directed by HHQ.’ In many cases, the order appeared to allow American soldiers to turn a blind eye to abuse of Iraqis on Iraqis.

Amnesty International quickly called on the US to investigate how much our commanders knew about Iraqi torture.

A top story at The Guardian, meanwhile, opened: “Leaked Pentagon files obtained by The Guardian contain details of more than 100,000 people killed in Iraq following the US-led invasion, including more than 15,000 deaths that were previously unrecorded.

“British ministers have repeatedly refused to concede the existence of any official statistics on Iraqi deaths. US General Tommy Franks claimed ‘We don’t do body counts.’ The mass of leaked documents provides the first detailed tally by the US military of Iraqi fatalities. Troops on the ground filed secret field reports over six years of the occupation, purporting to tote up every casualty, military and civilian.

“Iraq Body Count, a London-based group that monitors civilian casualties, told the Guardian: ‘These logs contain a huge amount of entirely new information regarding casualties. Our analysis so far indicates that they will add 15,000 or more previously unrecorded deaths to the current IBC total. This data should never have been withheld from the public.’ ” The logs recorded a total of 109,032 violent deaths between 2004 and 2009.

Citing a new document, the Times reported: “According to one particularly painful entry from 2006, an Iraqi wearing a tracksuit was killed by an American sniper who later discovered that the victim was the platoon’s interpreter…. The documents…reveal many previously unreported instances in which American soldiers killed civilians—at checkpoints, from helicopters, in operations. Such killings are a central reason Iraqis turned against the American presence in their country, a situation that is now being repeated in Afghanistan.”

And now, re the Afghanistan war logs, another book excerpt:

The Times highlighted it as “The War Logs” with the subhed, “A six-year archive of classified military documents offers an unvarnished and grim picture of the Afghan war.” Explicitly, or by extension, the release also raised questions about the media coverage of the war to date.

The Guardian carried a tough editorial on its website, calling the picture “disturbing” and raising doubts about ever winning this war, adding: “These war logs—written in the heat of engagement—show a conflict that is brutally messy, confused and immediate. It is in some contrast with the tidied-up and sanitized ‘public’ war, as glimpsed through official communiques as well as the necessarily limited snapshots of embedded reporting.”

Elsewhere, the paper traced the CIA and paramilitary roles in the deaths of civilians in Afghanistan, many cases hidden until now. In one incident, a US patrol machine-gunned a bus, wounding or killing fifteen. David Leigh wrote, “They range from the shootings of individual innocents to the often massive loss of life from air strikes, which eventually led President Hamid Karzai to protest publicly that the US was treating Afghan lives as ‘cheap’.”

The paper said the logs also detailed “how the Taliban have caused growing carnage with a massive escalation of their roadside bombing campaign, which has killed more than 2,000 civilians to date.” Previously unknown friendly fire incidents also surfaced.

The White House, which knew what was coming, quickly slammed the release of classified reports— most labeled “secret”—and pointed out the documents ended in 2009, just before the president set a new policy in the war; and claimed that the whole episode was suspect because WikiLeaks was against the war. Still, it was hard to dismiss official internal memos such as: “The general view of Afghans is that current gov’t is worse than the Taliban.

Among the revelations that gained prime real estate from The New York Times: “The documents…suggest that Pakistan, an ostensible ally of the United States, allows representatives of its spy service to meet directly with the Taliban in secret strategy sessions to organize networks of militant groups that fight against American soldiers in Afghanistan, and even hatch plots to assassinate Afghan leaders.” The Guardian, however, found no “smoking gun” on this matter. The Times also reported that the US had given Afghans credit for missions carried out by our own Special Ops teams.

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Obviously much more in our book.

Chase Madar on how politicians in both parties have found, in Chelsea Manning, a scapegoat for the Iraq War.

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Within 24 hours of the official press release being released, CNN contacted the Helping Hands Dispensary in Boulder, Colorado and requested that it stop the sales of the “Sanjay Gupta Kush” strain.

The T-shirt Robert Griffin III wore for his pregame warm-up on Monday said “Operation Patience,” a tongue-in-cheek joke about the Redskins’ slowly bringing him back to game action off his ACL injury. It was funny after a controversy-filled week. The T-shirt seemed pretty nice too, maybe a nice breathable cotton.

But most likely, that T-shirt wasn’t worth the $10,000 the NFL is making Griffin pay for it.

The NFL doesn’t like anyone wearing anything that doesn’t adhere to their uniform policies. Anything that isn’t from an official apparel supplier is a particular no-no.

(via NFL’s uniform police hits Robert Griffin III with a $10,000 fine, apparently for ‘Operation Patience’ shirt | Shutdown Corner - Yahoo! Sports)

idrawnintendo:

Inspired by Costume Quest—a fantastic Halloween game that you can go grab right now for 50% off on Steam—which came out back in 2010 and has since been a part of my yearly Halloween tradition.

The sorriest man in Gotham City!

A gay transgendered person who leaks U.S. military secrets -- Bradley Manning is like the final boss in a Republican videogame.

Tarsnap automatically "deduplicates" — that is, identifies and removes duplicate blocks of data — from the archives it stores. While any one archive will usually not contain many copies of the same data (although there are exceptions, e.g., software developers with multiple check-outs of different source code trees), it is very common to have several archives created at different times which share a lot of their contents. This server has over 6,000 archives stored — hourly backups for over 8 months — which add up to a total of 17.7 TB; but after duplicate blocks of data are removed (or more precisely, only stored once), that drops to 13.8 GB, which is then compressed to 3.3 GB — an amount which costs less than $1/month to store. Data archived via Tarsnap is stored on the Amazon S3 storage service (the original version, not the new "reduced redundancy" version).

Sovereign:

A set of Ansible playbooks to build and maintain your own private cloud: email, calendar, contacts, file sync, IRC bouncer, VPN, and more.

true statement destroys enemies -

Rex Ronan: Experimental Surgeon

(Sculptured Software - SNES - 1994)

Numerous classic comic characters have been “updated” over the decades in an effort to make them more appealing to new audiences, frequently with mixed results. But few makeovers have been as surprising, or apparently as successful, as King Features’ transformation of Olive Oyl into … well, a fashion icon of sorts. Tall, rail-thin and large-footed, [...]

ThinkGeek has released a Moving Tail Kitty Car Decal that, when applied to the rear wiper area and turned on, makes it looks as if you have a happy or grumpy cat wagging its tail on your back windshield. The decal kit (2 kitties and 4 tails) is available to purchase online.

Get some animal action on your car in a way that isn’t illegal in most states with the Moving Tail Kitty Car Decal. Designed for cars with a rear window wiper, this whimsical kitty comes in two flavors: Happy and Grumpy. You get both! (Kids, do not assign Happy and Grumpy to your parents. Let them pick. Just trust us on this one.) Application is easy: clean off the surface, stick down the vinyl decal, and smooth any bubbles out with the side of a credit card. Then turn on your wiper and watch the kitty’s tail swish swish swish!

music by The Wiggly Tendrils – “Song for Nikolai and Dmitri on the Occasion of their 15th Year”

images and video via ThinkGeek

ESPN said Friday its decision was based on a lack of editorial control over "League of Denial: The NFL's Concussion Crisis," airing in October on PBS' "Frontline" public affairs series. At ESPN's request, its logo was being removed from websites related to the project and from the film itself. Meanwhile, both ESPN and the NFL on Friday denied a New York Times report that quotes unidentified sources saying the NFL had pressured ESPN to drop out of the project.

The DOJ said it would allow a five-year injunction rather than a 10-year term, as well as staggered negotiations with book publishers. But it declined to back off requests regarding an external auditor and the ability to purchase e-books from rivals like Amazon within the iOS ecosystem.

In the Ubisoft video game Assassin's Creed III, a fictionalized representation of Gálvez is available to download as a playable character for the game's multiplayer mode.

Soon after Ben Affleck was announced as the latest big-screen Batman, fan petitions surfaced on Change.org calling for Warner Bros. to reverse their casting decision.

For those wondering about using the Oculus Rift VR system on Linux for a virtual reality 3D gaming headset, it should work just fine on your favorite Linux distribution...

Mister Epic Mann has released How Animals Eat Their Food Part 2, a funny sequel to their popular video How Animals Eat Their Food. The comedy group has also released a collection of bloopers from making the second video:

“You can give Henry Rollins some new tattoos.”

Los Angeles artist Brandon Bird has released a magical new trailer promoting his upcoming pop culture art book, Brandon Bird’s Astonishing World of Art. The trailer, starring actress and comedian Kate Micucci, was directed by Julia Vickerman and Joel Fox. Brandon’s paperback book is scheduled to release on September 1st and available to pre-order online from both Amazon and Barnes and Noble.

From Pop artist Brandon Bird, this activity book is bursting with pages of coloring, stickering, and connect-the-dots fun! Featuring activities and portraits inspired by (and parodying) popular artists and televisions shows—including Law & Order, Nicolas Cage, Christopher Walken, Mr. T, Ghostbusters, and more—Brandon Bird’s Astonishing World of Art offers endless entertainment for adult children of all ages.

video via Chronicle Books

submited via Laughing Squid Tips

zooborns:

Rare Somali Wild Ass Joins the Herd at Zoo Basel

Zoo Basel welcomed the newest and youngest addition to their Somali Wild Ass herd, Kali. Kali was born on July 3 in the late hours of the night. Kali has been spending a lot of time with his mother, Yogala. His birth is crucial to his species— there are just about 220 Somali Wild Asses living in zoos worldwide. The species is critically endangered and is one of the rarest mammals on the planet. Only a few hundred remaining in Ethiopia, Eritrea and Somalia.

Learn more about this critically endangered species at Zooborns

Since Steve Ballmer’s announcement this morning that he’s stepping down as CEO of Microsoft in the next 12 months, the company’s stock has popped more than 8%. Ballmer is Microsoft’s second-largest individual shareholder, with 333,252,990 shares, which means his $16 billion net worth just appreciated $625 million. Bill Gates, Microsoft’s largest individual shareholder, just added $741 million to his $71.3 billion kitty.

Ballmer says he is “emotional” about saying farewell to Microsoft.

My review of The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones is out this week. To summarize: it’s a terrible movie that is based on a terrible book series by Cassandra Clare, and this terrible book series might have been originally written as Harry Potter fan fiction? (Nobody’s totally sure, but people are pretty sure.) I tried to read the book before seeing the movie, but I could only make it about 100 pages in. Because it’s terrible.

What I didn’t have space to mention in my review is that I fell down some dark, lame internet rabbit holes while researching the evolution of The Mortal Instruments from fanfic to major motion picture, and it’s, like, this whole thing, with accusations of plagiarism and everything! (Yes, accusations of plagiarism. From fanfic writers. EYE ROLL.) Since I love a good internet drama, I’ll fan the nerd-flames a little for your benefit. (Please keep in mind, though, that while I’ve skimmed a ton of dorky rants about this Mortal Instruments conflict, I would hardly call myself an expert.) A whole lot of nonsense after the jump.

*Spoiler warning for the, like, 8 people who care.*

Here’s the basic deal: Cassandra Clare (whose real name is the decidedly less magical “Judith Rumelt”) became well-known for some Draco/Hermione fanfic she posted called “The Draco Trilogy,” among others. According to some extremely long and extremely tedious summaries of the drama, whole sections of dialogue in Clare’s pieces were boosted from TV shows like Buffy and The X-Files, and apparently some ideas about (sorry, guys) wizarding afterlife were swiped from author Pamela Dean’s Secret Country Trilogy. Clare added disclaimers to her pieces, and admitted that she had “paid homage” to various other works, but “The Draco Trilogy” was eventually pulled, despite its popularity, from fanfic sites. Fic nerds - and Clare herself - seemed to say that everything was pulled due to plagiarism concerns. As far as I understand it, this went down in around 2001; Clare says she started writing the Mortal Instruments books in 2004. So. There’s that part.

Fast-forward to 2007, and The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones book is released. According to some nerds who were familiar with Clare’s work, it is supposedly very similar to her Harry Potter fanfic, which begs some very 21st century questions, like: Is it plagiarism if the author is taking one thing she wrote and using it for a different thing? Can you plagiarize yourself? And then is it even more plagiarism-y since she already admitted that pieces of the first thing were stolen from—excuse me, homages to—other works?

Since she now has a real publishing career, I assume some lawyers decided her books were ultimately different enough from her fanfic to publish, but the whole thing still seems super skeezy to me. I’m a Harry Potter fangirl, and while watching The Mortal Instruments, I could easily pinpoint the Potter-specific spells the characters were casting (their diffindo sucks, by the way). It’s also pretty obvious that their big glowing orb thing is a lot like Dumbledore’s Mirror of Erised, and their werewolf is named Luke instead of Lupin which is just phenomenally lazy.

And it’s even easier to spot the Potter similarities in Clare’s book:

Mundies/mundanes = muggles
Institute = Hogwarts
Clave = Ministry of Magic
Law = International Statute of Wizard Secrecy
Ravener = Dementor
Raven = owl
Powerful demon lords/warlocks = Death Eaters

Obviously.

I expect that more dedicated superfans will find lots more similarities, so let’s everybody keep an eye on the internet for those fun posts!

Anyway, now you - like me - know way, way more than you needed to know about this crappy, crappy book and movie. You’re welcome!

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MGMT performed on last night's edition of Late Night with David Letterman, and the crowd reaction that follows tells the entire story. WOW, what a boring, pretentious pile of shit that was. (Hope they didn't pay much for that giant cowbell!)

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Lei Jun, CEO of Chinese mobile phone company Xiaomi, confirmed today on his Sina Weibo account that a recent round of funding valued the company at $10 billion. He did not go into details but that means the three-year-old company, valued last year at $4 billion, is now worth nearly twice as much as Blackberry and is on par with Lenovo, founded in 1984. Quartz first reported the prospective rise in Xiaomi’s valuation two months ago. The company’s rapid rise is all the more astonishing considering that Xiaomi only makes mobile phones, sells them only in China, Taiwan and Hong Kong, and hadn’t hit the market until two years ago. Here’s how Xiaomi’s valuation got so big:

• Good value: Xiaomi phones are very cheap. They are also rather attractive. The Xiaomi Hongmi, released earlier this month, is priced at $130. Yet it offers a large, high-resolution screen, fast processor, and a good camera. Millions of people signed up to get one as soon as the phone launched. Its higher-end phones retail in the region of $300. That renders moot comparisons to Apple ($600 and upwards for the iPhone 5) and even Samsung’s mid-range devices (between $200 and $300). And it explains why a company that sold just 7 million devices for $2 billion in revenue last year can double its forecast for this year to 15 million, and then raise it again to 20 million.
• Great timing: The mobile landscape has changed beyond recognition in the past two years. Global smartphones sales doubled from about 100 million per quarter in 2011 to well over 200 million in the first three moths of this year. The rise of the mobile phone has affected everything from website design and traffic to the personal computer business. Xiaomi entered the market just at the cusp of this boom. With its high-quality, low price devices and a chief executive who emulates Steve Jobs it was always going to do well.  
• Huge potential: Xiaomi recently displaced Apple to become the sixth-largest selling smartphone maker in China but it only controls a mere 5% of the market. Its CEO wants to do more with the platform he provides, likening the phones Xiaomi sells to Amazon’s Kindles. He should know a thing or two about that; he made his first fortune with Joyo.com, a large e-commerce company that Amazon bought for $75 million in 2004. And then there is the rest of the world, which Xiaomi, with its image yet untarnished, may have a better chance of wooing than its peers Huawei and Lenovo.

Canadian cartoonist Jeff Lemire is taking over as writer of "Justice League of America," sharing exclusive details with CBR about the series' shift to "Justice League of Canada," the new Adam Strange and more.