March 3, 2013

Romney: ‘It kills me’ not to be in White House

Mitt Romney says it "kills" him that he's not president. But he doesn't blame Superstorm Sandy, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie or anything else on his loss to President Barack Obama--except his campaign's failure to connect with minority voters.

“I lost my election because of my campaign," Romney said on "Fox News Sunday" in his first television interview since his November defeat, "not because of what anyone else did."

The former Massachusetts governor refused place blame on Christie, who some Republicans say elevated Obama in his embrace of the president in the wake of the storm.

Romney said his inability to win over black and Hispanic voters--and the damage done by those disastrous "47 percent" comments--ultimately derailed his White House bid.

More: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/mitt-romney-kills-fox-obama-163333853--election.html

March 3, 2013

Domestic drones are already reshaping U.S. crime-fighting

GRAND JUNCTION, COLO. (Reuters) - As U.S. authorities grapple with how to regulate the use of unarmed drones in U.S. skies, a small network of police, first responders and experts is already flying unmanned aircraft.

These operators say rapidly evolving drone technology is already reshaping disaster response, crime scene reconstruction, crisis management and tactical operations.

Critics of U.S. domestic drone use worry about privacy and safety.

Several dozen local police departments, federal agencies and universities have special FAA permits to fly drones in U.S. airspace.

More: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/03/03/us-usa-drones-lawenforcement-idUSBRE92208W20130303

March 2, 2013

Chadian troops 'kill' al-Qaeda leader in Mali

Source: Al Jazeera



The president of Chad, Idriss Deby, announced on Friday that Chadian troops, who are part of a larger African force fighting in northern Mali, have killed one of al-Qaeda's leading commanders in that country.

Deby's spokesman said that he announced Abdelhamid Abou Zeid's death during a ceremony on Friday for Chadian soldiers killed in fighting in Mali. Abou Zeid is the Algerian leader of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM).

His death, which could not immediately be verified, would be a major blow to the group and to its growing influence in North Africa.

Officials in Mali and in France, which is leading an international military intervention in Mali against fighters linked to AQIM, could not confirm reports of Abou Zeid's death.

Read more: http://aje.me/Z3nNve

March 2, 2013

Syria crisis: European countries expected to start arming rebels

Source: The Gaurdian

Some European countries are expected to break with Washington and start supplying the Syrian rebels with weapons in the next few months, the representative of the Syrian opposition in Britain has told the Guardian.

The National Coalition's London representative, Walid Saffour, predicted that by the next meeting of the western and Arab Friends of Syria group in Turkey, due in late spring or early summer, "there will be a breakthrough that will end the restrictions of the European countries".

"This would be for the ammunition we require, the quality weapons we need to deter the Syrian regime from using aeroplanes and Scud missiles to bomb villages and bakeries," Saffour said. "We on the ground are advancing steadily but we are suffering from a lack of ammunition. We expect that to change at the next Friends of Syria meeting in Istanbul."

Another opposition figure involved in supplying the rebels said there had been a noticeable relaxation in recent days of the strict restrictions the US and Turkey had put on arms flows over the Turkish border. He claimed a Syrian army helicopter and a Mig warplane had been shot down in the past two days, for the first time by imported missiles.

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/mar/01/syria-crisis-european-countries-rebels

March 2, 2013

Florida man swallowed by sinkhole in bedroom

A Florida man fell into a sinkhole that opened suddenly Thursday night beneath the bedroom of his suburban Tampa home, calling out to his brother for help as he fell, the brother said Friday.

"I heard a loud crash, like a car coming through the house," Jeremy Bush told CNN affiliate WFTS. "I heard my brother screaming and I ran back there and tried going inside his room, but my old lady turned the light on and all I seen was this big hole, a real big hole, and all I saw was his mattress."

Bush frantically tried to rescue his brother, Jeff Bush, by standing in the hole and digging at the rubble with a shovel until police arrived and pulled him out, saying the floor was still collapsing.

More: http://www.cnn.com/2013/03/01/us/florida-sinkhole/index.html

March 2, 2013

Shocking Statistic

February 24, 2013

Domestic Abuse: The Crime That Crosses Class and Color Lines

Even when women won’t testify, we need to consider prosecutions when there is other sufficient evidence, writes attorney Rikki Klieman.

By Rikki Klieman
Feb 24, 2013

Now former WCBS anchorman Rob Morrison is finally out of his marital home this week, and his wife Ashley may be one of those women who is lucky to be alive. He allegedly had a long- term pattern of physically abusing his wife, who is a beautiful and intelligent television journalist. Merely a month before this incident, the police were called when he is said to have choked her until she almost passed out. However, she then decided to drop the January complaint, saying that she had exaggerated her accusations.

I certainly hope that Ashley, with support from family, friends, and counselors keeps Rob out of the house for good. Yet, I won’t be surprised if she, like so many other women, lets him back into her life.

Last month, Rihanna went to court, reunited with her battering boyfriend, Chris Brown, to support his claim that he completed his community service—which was put in place precisely because of the vicious beating he gave her on the night before the Grammys a few years ago. They are back together and smiling at the cameras again.

We remember Nicole Brown Simpson, who was beaten over and over again, before she was murdered. She left photographs and a diary as evidence and spoke as a voice from the grave.

More: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/02/24/the-crime-that-crosses-class-and-color-lines.html

February 24, 2013

Anti-Gay Cardinal Keith O'Brien Rejects Accusations Of 'Inappropriate' Behavior With Priests

Source: Reuters

Britain's most senior Roman Catholic cleric, a cardinal expected to take part in the conclave to choose the next pope, rejected allegations on Sunday that he had behaved in an "inappropriate" way with other priests.

The Observer newspaper said Cardinal Keith O'Brien, 74, the archbishop of St. Andrews and Edinburgh, who is known for outspoken views on homosexuality, had been reported to the Vatican over allegations of inappropriate behavior stretching back 30 years.

"Cardinal O'Brien contests these claims and is taking legal advice," a spokesman for the cardinal said.

Three priests and a former priest, from a Scottish diocese, have complained to the Vatican and demanded O'Brien's immediate resignation, the newspaper said, adding that they wanted the conclave to choose Pope Benedict's successor to be "clean".

Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/24/cardinal-keith-obrien-inappropriate-gay_n_2753175.html

February 23, 2013

Can DU survive this?

February 23, 2013

Acquired Tastes of Asian Art: ‘No Country,’ New Asian Art at the Guggenheim

The painting “What Do We Want” by Truong Tan, an artist in Vietnam, refers to his experiences as an openly gay man in a homophobic society.

By HOLLAND COTTER
The New York Times
February 21, 2013

Recently, and resoundingly, America’s big museums have shifted their collecting habits. Not only are they buying new art like mad, but a lot of that art also comes from outside the Western Hemisphere, particularly from Asia. The Guggenheim Museum, now embarked on a single-mindedly non-Western shopping spree, leads the pack.

After a decade or two of trying to colonize the planet with Guggenheim franchises the museum is now taking the easier route of bringing the world to New York through an acquisitions campaign supported by the Swiss bank UBS. Over the next five years, under the auspices of the Guggenheim UBS MAP Global Art Initiative, the museum will focus on buying art in three roughly defined geographic areas: South and Southeast Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East and North Africa.

Purchases will be scouted out by curators hired on two-year residencies and the results put on view in three exhibitions, the first of which, “No Country: Contemporary Art for South and Southeast Asia,” is up and running. Organized by June Yap, an independent curator from Singapore, with help from Helen Hsu and Alexandra Munroe of the Guggenheim, it’s a smallish show of 22 artists and collectives, but it takes in an immense stretch of turf — the Indian subcontinent, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

The title, adapted from a Yeats poem, is meant to warn us off seeing the art as either narrowly representative of various nations or as expressing the spirit of some exotic, never-never land Asia. Yet many of the strongest pieces speak quite specifically about the cultures from which they come, as, of course, does most “Western” art, even if we’re too close to it to see its determining contexts.

More: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/22/arts/design/no-country-new-asian-art-at-the-guggenheim.html