Now a third man has climbed the new New York Times building, reports the New York Times, although not with the exasperated C'mon, you guys! Stop it! tone you might expect.
Instead, they're going the uhh...oops route, and acknowledging that the decision by architect Renzo Piano to encase the building in a gazillion horizontal ceramic rods (intended to let in sunlight and keep out heat) might not have been 100% thought through.
It may be eco-friendly, but it's also just a little too convenient for all the activists out there who want nothing more than an iconic building from which to unfurl spray-painted banners.
Maybe all the talk of boycotting the Olympics in China will die down with the first perfect round-off, but in the meantime it's hard not to wonder what we're doing there.
The New York Times recently ran a horrific story about what Chinese athletes go through to get ready for the Olympics. Hint: It's not just waking up early and catching a ride to the local skating rink.
It's that time of year again: cue the obligatory anti-fireworks article in every local newspaper. Some are totally justified. Governor Schwarzenegger is right to tell Californians not to use consumer fireworks this year because of how dry it is out there and how many fires they've had to fight already this year.
And the National Council on Fireworks Safety is right to offer helpful hints about how to shoot off fireworks safely. (We enjoyed their video starring a suburban Philip Seymour Hoffman lookalike.)
But all the articles nit-picking about, say, the environmental impact of bottle rockets, such as this advice column on Salon.com, seem like buzz-killing at its most extreme. The latter's suggestion:
Rebecca Traister has a great piece up on Salon.com about the real reasons Clinton supporters are mad that Obama won.
Sour grapes? Yes, but there's more to these voters, some of whom Traister says are calling themselves "'PUMAs' (as in, 'Party Unity My Ass')" than simple sore loserdom.
Among the insights: "They are mad at Mark Penn." (#9) and "They are mad at everyone who believes them to be old, white and racist." (#11)
Plenty of former officers have criticized the Iraq War, but there's only been one active duty career soldier who's not only come out against the War but also refused to go and fight in it. (He said he would go to Afghanistan instead, but that the Iraq war is "illegal").
That soldier is Lt. Ehren Watada, 30, a junior Army officer from Hawaii who's become a poster child for the anti-war movement. He's also become persona non grata within the military and is facing a possible sentence of six years in prison.
Our friend Tara McKelvey is the first journalist who has gotten close to him in more than a year. She's written an amazing story for The American Prospect about Watada, who's now in legal limbo and being subtly punished at a desk job.
According to Buzzfeed, an online Dunkin' Donuts ad has been pulled because of right-wing outrage over Rachael Ray's Middle Eastern-y scarf.
Conservative Michelle Malkin scolded Ray for her "clueless sporting of a jihadi chic keffiyeh."
Of course, the keffiyeh has been worn by an awful lot of people over the last twenty years, including Kanye West - not to mention Lauren Bush and John McCain's foxy daughter Meghan. It wouldn't scream "radical Islam" to most people looking at the ad.
Still, the complaints were loud enough that Dunkin' Donuts caved. So, when you see Ray wearing a "God Bless America" T-shirt and a flag pin in her next ad campaign, you'll know why.
The Guardian has an article about Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer's eventful lecture in Budapest yesterday. Upset that Microsoft had received a government contract, a student stood up, yelled, "Hey you!" and demanded that Ballmer return the contract money. Then he threw eggs at him (they missed) and proceeded to politely file out of the room in his "Microsoft = Corruption" T-shirt. It was a very brief, oddly mild (if messy) attack. And - like all that criticism of Windows Live - it didn't seem to phase Ballmer at all.
Writer and activist Jennifer Baumgardner has created a new T-shirt (with the guy who invented the '90s staple "Vinnie's Tampon Case").
The shirt reads: "I was raped."
In a New York Times story about the shirts, journalist Susan Dominus writes: What was she going for? A shirt that would let rape victims "own the experience," [Baumgardner] says, and would help chip away the cone of silence that surrounds a crime with humiliation at its core.
This video was taken at a March 14th Free Tibet protest at the U.N. It's making the rounds as supposed evidence of police brutality.
The cameraman comes off as pretty hysterical. The narration includes lines like: "I can't believe all these clubs for Buddhists. Shame! Shame! You guys are gross!" He's yelling at the cops from the get-go, so it seems like he may have contributed to the scene's heightened adrenalin.
KGW has great footage of a high school anti-war protest in Portland that culminated in the students' scaling City Hall. They even got the mayor to come out and answer their questions.
That kind of thing doesn't seem to get nearly as much attention as complaints about young people's supposed apathy.
In (sort-of) defense of her generation, a college student wrote in the Philly Inquirer that it's not that young people today aren't politically minded. They're volunteering in record numbers. But when it comes to taking to the streets, she says, they are too comfortable and like their parents too much to feel much in the way of rage at authority and to protest in the same way those in the '60s did.
She also says, "Would boomers have protested if there had been no draft? Even as idealistic as they were, I don't think so."
Weird title, I know, but it really is an interesting case, and I'm not too creative this morning with my headlines. You may have heard of Pervez Kambaksh, he's the unlucky Afghani fellow who has been sentenced to death for downloading womans rights information from the internet. Womans rights are apparently an insult to Islam and insults to Islam are punishable by death.
According to the BBC it's now in the hands of the Afghani President Hamid Karzai to decide whether or not this 23 year old law student, who is interested in womans rights, will die.
Or did the Captain end the debate first here on Newsbloggers?
This will be the fourth time I've blogged about Homeless Vets this week, it's been a silly narrative O'Reilly has been broadcasting, if I give up following it now, I will be doing you all a disservice. You would think an adult with a salary of $9 Million could think of more to do with the valuable airtime he posses to address the real issues. Is he the type of journalist young Americans should listen too? (My lovely girlfriend gave me the O'Reilly children's book recently, as a joke, I found it scary.)
Olbermann references a bridge in New Orleans. Take a look.
Well, I have enough AOL experience to know that this comment section will likely descend into chaos. Many will complain that I am too liberal and many will cry foul because the enclosed video was from Bill's greatest rival, Keith Olbermann. The complaints are always the same, some AOLers will apparently keep complaining until I turn myself into a Neo-Con.
This complaint mess all started after Powerline informed the AOL community I was posting liberal propaganda. This was during my first couple weeks on the job. If they sound familiar, these are also the guys who brought down Dan Rather. Rather was a legend, taking down liberal blogger Jeff Hoard proved to be a piece of cake for them. Here I was, first days at AOL, an idiot, thinking each writer on Newsbloggers were all working together towards a common goal of creating a digital blog about current events and these guys are bashing me daily in front of the hundreds and thousands of potential new readers.
Powerline eventually left AOL, but the Neo-Con mentality remains, muddy every argument - a tie equals a win. I don't mind chaos and flamewars in comment threads, as long as AOLers are happy, I've come to terms with the fact that this blog has been a healthy anger outlet for many. Myself, I have a young mind and it generally only works when inebriated. For the first time I fear my mental health because I spend my days reading endless Neo-Con hate mail.
This is my 500th post here on AOL and I hope to continue with 500 more in the future, It's time this blog either turns a corner or ends its run. This month I am mobilizing a campaign to restore the integrity of this blog here on Newsbloggers, to learn more details about how I plan on making this blog a little bit more peaceful, Email me.
The readers know I'm a sucker for a good documentary, and this documentary has been mentioned several times during the two both Bill O'Reilly vs Homeless Vets discussions. The portion below focuses on the newer homeless Iraq War Veterans, you can watch another segment about homeless Vietnam Vets here. Naturally, you should visit the films official website and pick up a copy (for yourself or your local library) and visit the recommended links.
Just more examples to add to the millions already out there. Most have heard that rising sea temperature has been killing our Coral reefs - Read Coral Bleaching. But I personally had no idea of the rate that Coral reefs were dying. Last night on CBC, my pet fish and I watched this report in horror. 50% of Caribbean Coral Reefs have been wiped out in the past 12 months.
It might have been better to title this post something like: "reefs dying" or "Global Warming killing reefs" - I was actually going to title it "Are Humans retarded?"
Horrifying! Climate Change related news happens everyday, we are seeing the impact of dirty energy now. We have the knowledge and technology to clean up the planet, but nobody is willing to lead. This Coral Reef story on CBC ironically came after a report about the announcement of Alberta's "Green Plan" which includes no plan to reduce emissions until 2020. Yeehaw. Yes, we are a stupid bunch eh. Let's not forget North America's poor showing in Bali.
Now I understand there are still many people in both America and Canada who actually believe the Exxon propaganda - "burning our natural resources doesn't harm the earth." I think this thinking is our biggest hurdle. You actually might think that the Coral Reef destruction has nothing to do with humans, well I planned ahead and now I have a second story that you can't disagree with. The Destruction of the Rain Forest.
When I was in elementary school, we were taught about the "Save the Rainforest" campaigns. Ironically we also had "McDonalds Hamburger day" every month.
Here is a call to action video about Global Warming with the Rainforest as the main theme.
Cleveland Democratic Rep. Dennis Kucinich caused a stink on the House of Representatives floor this morning during a speech where he announced he'll introduce articles of impeachment against President Bush on Monday, Jan. 28, the day Bush delivers his State of the Union speech.
Now a third man has climbed the new New York Times building, reports the New York Times, although not with the exasperated C'mon, you guys! Stop it! tone you might expect. 
It's that time of year again: cue the obligatory anti-fireworks article in every local newspaper. Some are totally justified. Governor Schwarzenegger is right 
Rebecca Traister has a 
Plenty of former officers have criticized the Iraq War, but there's only been one active duty career soldier who's not only come out against the War but also refused to go and fight in it. (He said he would go to Afghanistan instead, but that the Iraq war is "illegal"). 
According to 
Writer and activist Jennifer Baumgardner has created a new 
KGW has 
