Should we build tools to search public records?...
Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik, who opened fire on a San Bernardino holiday party earlier this month, were buried Tuesday in a quiet, graveside funeral. Many of those who attended mosque with the couple refused to attend, two mosque members said. ...The funeral followed traditional Islamic rituals, said an attendee. At a Muslim cemetery hours away from San Bernardino, the bodies were cleansed according to Islamic rules, wrapped in white cloth and buried.Those attending the funeral at a graveyard some distance from San Bernardino are keeping the location of the burials under wraps, fearing the graves would be desecrated.
On Halloween night, Nathan Brown and his roommates made an impromptu "social experiment" at their house in Serra Mesa. They set up a table with three boxes of full-size candy bars for trick-or-treaters to come and take. They also wrote a note to the trick-or-treaters, "Help yourself, but please be considerate." "We thought we`ll leave some candy out...of course people are going to help themselves to a lot, but it'll be fun to see who takes what," Brown said. Brown and his roommates left home for about an hour. They returned to empty boxes. So, they checked the security video to see which kids took the most.
We asked @nytmag readers: If you could go back and kill Hitler as a baby, would you do it? (What's your response?) pic.twitter.com/daatm12NZC
— NYT Magazine (@NYTmag) October 23, 2015
Almost instantly, you'll receive an email promising you all kinds of "goodies." We're not entirely sure what "goodies" we might get and we're afraid to ask.
Arjan El Fassed (director of Open State Foundation): ‘What elected politicians publicly say is a matter of public record. Even when tweets are deleted, it’s part of parliamentary history. These tweets were once posted and later deleted. What politicians say in public should be available to anyone. This is not about typos but it is a unique insight on how messages from elected politicians can change without notice.’
According to the new account, Sir Tim started with: “It’s strange that such a chauvinist monster like me has been asked to speak to women scientists,” which makes clear he mocking sexism, rather than indulging in it. St. Louis reported this as Hunt simply admitting: “he has a reputation as a male chauvinist.”
Such a special day in Selma as we celebrated the 50th Anniversary of the #SelmaToMontgomery marches. #Selma50 #FPI15 pic.twitter.com/2SSja0VGlt
— Rep. Bradley Byrne (@RepByrne) March 8, 2015
This picture really encapsulates the day. It was an honor to experience the trip w/ @repjohnlewis #Selma50 pic.twitter.com/rl6mMaLLb8
— Rep. Kevin Yoder (@RepKevinYoder) March 8, 2015
I'm especially amused by the Twitter feed of Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel, for some reason. Maybe it's the frequency of third-person tweets; maybe it's the fact that he usually refers to himself simply as "Rahm," not something more formal like "Mayor Emanuel." It's just Rahm talkin' about Rahm. Rahm on Rahm.Rahm, Rahm, and more Rahm:
ICYMI → Last week, Rahm joined hundreds of labor leaders and workers to kick off early vote: http://t.co/LzFzo5QlxY
— Rahm Emanuel (@RahmEmanuel) February 16, 2015
The report was based on this satirical piece by The Israeli Daily, which they even cite!The outlet finally removed the article and associated social media postings, but fortunately for you and me, Google cache is forever:The icy relationship between President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu hit a new low this week, with the American president ‘defriending’ the Israeli Premier on Facebook. Though it’s unclear exactly when Obama made the move to delete his Israeli counterpart as a Facebook friend – most likely around the time Netanyahu accepted Boehner’s controversial invite – Netanyahu only learned of the snub yesterday, according to a source close to the prime minister. “Bibi was looking at [Attorney General] Eric Holder’s page, and he happened to check what friends they had in common,” the source explained. “And he sees [Secretary of State John] Kerry, Bill [Clinton], Hill [ary Clinton], Fabio, but no Obama. So he goes to Obama’s page, and sure enough it says ‘Add Friend.’ We were in complete disbelief.” While the White House had no official comment, a source close to the President said Obama had reached his maximum allowed Friends and wished to add Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif after a pleasant meeting on Iran’s nuclear program. The source said the defriending wasn’t personal, but conceded Obama had gotten sick of seeing Sara Netanyahu on his newsfeed and the Prime Minister’s daily invitations to play Candy Crush.How they could treat that seriously is anyone’s guess. Now if only Obama treated their nuclear ambitions this seriously.
Two different photographs, one very clearly photoshopped to provide some social commentary on a quickly spiraling situation. Predictably, the photograph enraged some, delighted others, but no one with two brain cells to rub together believed that the "rob a store" version of the photograph was real.
Politifact, however, dove in headfirst to provide us with an analysis no one asked for (emphasis mine):
We also plan to use Truthy to detect political smears, astroturfing, misinformation, and other social pollution. While the vast majority of memes arise in a perfectly organic manner, driven by the complex mechanisms of life on the Web, some are engineered by the shady machinery of high-profile congressional campaigns. Truthy uses a sophisticated combination of text and data mining, social network analysis, and complex networks models. To train our algorithms, we leverage crowdsourcing: we rely on users like you to flag injections of forged grass-roots activity. Therefore, click on the Truthy button when you see a suspicious meme!Here's a flow chart, which contains even more science:
China is now Israel's second- largest trading partner, with exports of US$2.88 billion and imports of US$7.99 billion last year. Chinese companies are eyeing several high-profile investment deals in Israel. These include tendering for construction of a railway linking Eilat on the Red Sea and Ashdod on the Mediterranean, and purchasing a more than US$1 billion controlling stake in Tnuva, Israel's dairy giant.Peter Cai at the China Spectator writes on September 2, How Israel is winning the social media war in China:
