Sunday, March 31, 2013

How Samsung Became the World's No. 1 Smartphone Maker - Businessweek

As Samsung has risen, others have failed, often in spectacular fashion: Motorola was split up and its handset business sold to Google (GOOG). Nokia watched its long-standing No. 1 position erode when it got blindsided by smartphones. The Sony-Ericsson (ERIC)partnership dissolved. Palm disappeared into Hewlett-Packard (HPQ)BlackBerry (BBRY) continues to be on a 24-hour watch and has had its belt and shoelaces confiscated. When it comes to mobile hardware, today there's only Apple, Samsung, and a desperate crowd of brands that can't seem to rise above being called "the rest."

---SPSmith

Wednesday, March 27, 2013

Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal - Obituaries March 26 2013

Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal - Obituaries March 26 2013: "Timothy Wayne “Tim” Hopkins, 54, went to be with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and Dale Earnhardt to contribute his building and painting expertise to the constructing of many heavenly mansions on Saturday, March 23, 2013, in Memphis."

Tuesday, March 26, 2013

Cold Dead Hand with Jim Carrey from Jim Carrey, NickCorirossi, Charles Ingram, Funny Or Die, BoTown Sound, millsfx, and Melissa Gould McNeely

http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/0433b30576/cold-dead-hand-with-jim-carrey


---SPSmith

Supreme court limits police use of drug-sniffing dogs - US news | NBC News

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/51333438#.UVHoFVtATSw


---SPSmith

Twice Baked Potato with Egg on Top :: Home Cooking Adventure

http://www.homecookingadventure.com/recipes/twice-baked-potato-with-egg-on-top


---SPSmith

Raw Cauliflower Couscous | The Spontaneous Hausfrau


Raw Cauliflower Couscous

3 cups cauliflower, shredded
1/2 cup carrots, finely diced
1/3 cup red pepper, finely diced
4 tablespoons basil, chopped
4 tablespoons parsley, chopped
3 tablespoons olive oil
3 tablespoons sundried tomato, finely diced
2 tablespoons Kalamata olives, finely diced
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 tablespoon capers, minced
2 teaspoons lemon zest
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon pepper

Combine all the ingredients in a large bowl and toss until combined. Chill for at least 1 hour to let the flavors combine.


---SPSmith

Artificial intelligence expert Robert Wilensky dies at 61

http://newscenter.berkeley.edu/2013/03/25/robert-wilensky-dies-at-61/


---SPSmith

Sunday, March 24, 2013

Stifel

The money man behind atheism's activism
http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2013/03/23/the-money-man-behind-atheisms-activism/


---SPSmith

Home | Costs of War

http://costsofwar.org/
Our tally of all of the war's dead — including soldiers, militants,
police, contractors, journalists, humanitarian workers and civilians —
shows that at least 330,000 people have died due to direct war
violence.
$4 trillion spent

No Dubya, we don't miss you yet. We will never miss your
economy-crushing policies on futile military actions. All to enrich
the oil sheiks.

Saturday, March 23, 2013

10 Colleges With Largest Financial Endowments - US News and World Report


Harvard University leads the pack with more than $32 billion.

---SPSmith

Peter Scott - Telegraph

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/9949054/Peter-Scott.html

"The people I burgled got rich by greed and skulduggery. They
indulged in the mechanics of ostentation — they deserved me and I
deserved them. If I rob Ivana Trump, it is just a meeting of two
different kinds of degeneracy on a dark rooftop."

---SPSmith

Thursday, March 21, 2013

'Baghdad Bob' and His Ridiculous, True Predictions - Atlantic Mobile


THE PREDICTION

"The infidels are committing suicide by the hundreds on the gates of Baghdad."

THE REALITY

In 2003, this was probably Sahaf's most quoted line. It was so conveniently ludicrous, so patently untrue, that commentators didn't have to do any research or devote any column inches to disproving it.

A decade later, nobody jokes about military suicide. The Department of Veteran Affairs recently published the most comprehensive study of veteran suicides ever conducted, revealing that about 22 American vets committed suicide every day in 2010, the most recent year for which data was available. That's up from 18 per day in 2008.

So Sahaf was actually slightly wrong on this one. The United States really loses their servicemen and women to suicide not by the hundreds, but by the thousands. And not at the gates of Baghdad, but at home.

---SPSmith

10 Best Small Towns in America | Travel News from Fodor's Travel Guides


Sedona, Arizona

lauberge-sedona.jpg

What it's Like: Red-rock panoramas and the mythical "vortex" energies set the scene for this spa and wellness haven.

---SPSmith

Wednesday, March 20, 2013

Dangerous Minds | Dying vet’s ‘fuck you’ letter to George Bush & Dick Cheney needs to be read by every American


The Iraq War is the largest strategic blunder in U.S. history. It obliterated the balance of power in the Middle East. It installed a corrupt and brutal pro-Iranian government in Baghdad, one cemented in power through the use of torture, death squads and terror. And it has left Iran as the dominant force in the region. On every level—moral, strategic, military and economic—Iraq was a failure. And it was you, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney, who started this war. It is you who should pay the consequences.

---SPSmith

Why the invasion of Iraq was the single worst foreign policy decision in American history - Le Monde diplomatique - English edition

And so, happy 10th anniversary, Iraq War! A decade after the invasion, a chaotic and unstable Middle East is the unfinished legacy of our invasion. I guess the joke is on us after all, though no one is laughing.

---SPSmith

The March to War and Back — writing out loud — Medium

https://medium.com/something-like-falling/f05a8010fac0


---SPSmith

Bush big oil war

Opinion: Why Iraq War was fought for Big Oil
http://www.cnn.com/2013/03/19/opinion/iraq-war-oil-juhasz/index.html


---SPSmith

Saturday, March 16, 2013

Harry Stamps Obituary: View Harry Stamps's Obituary by The Sun Herald


Harry was locally sourcing his food years before chefs in California starting using cilantro and arugula (both of which he hated). For his signature bacon and tomato sandwich, he procured 100% all white Bunny Bread from Georgia, Blue Plate mayonnaise from New Orleans, Sauer's black pepper from Virginia, home grown tomatoes from outside Oxford, and Tennessee's Benton bacon from his bacon-of-the-month subscription. As a point of pride, he purported to remember every meal he had eaten in his 80 years of life.

---SPSmith

Friday, March 15, 2013

Book #6: The Big Sleep | 101 Books


Memorable Line: "What did it matter where you lay once you were dead? In a dirty sump or in a marble tower on top of a high hill. You were dead, you were sleeping the big sleep, you were not bothered by things like that. Oil and water were the same as wind and air to you. You just slept the big sleep, not caring about the nastiness of how you died or where you fell." - Philip Marlowe

---SPSmith

Ten Things to End Rape Culture | The Nation

http://www.thenation.com/article/172643/ten-things-end-rape-culture


---SPSmith

Justified (TV series) - Wikiquote


Arlo: Where were you, woman?
Helen: Down in the parking lot, giving blowjobs for cash.
Arlo: Were you paying or were they?

---SPSmith

Estimated cost of Iraq War is 190,000 lives and $2.2 trillion | Brown University News and Events

http://news.brown.edu/pressreleases/2013/03/warcosts


---SPSmith

Friday, March 08, 2013

What happened to Orson Scott Card? - Salon.com


Democracy is empathy. It is being able to see the rest of society as people just like you are, whether they agree with you or not. It is about not ruling at the barrel of a gun, but explaining to others the way you feel, bringing them around by letting them inside. By getting them to feel what you feel, which is the very definition of empathy. There are those who think that the failure of the world to agree with them, and their embrace of violence as a solution, somehow makes them the strong ones and the world the weak ones. But violence is such an easy solution, the emotional coward's way out of actually dealing with the existence of those who disagree as legitimate equals.

---SPSmith

Article: Idaho law banning abortions after 20 weeks ruled unconstitutional


Idaho law banning abortions after 20 weeks ruled unconstitutional
http://www.latimes.com/news/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-idaho-abortion-law-20130307,0,1080762.story

Sent via Flipboard


---SPSmith

Tuesday, March 05, 2013

Tweet from James Martin (@Pundamentalism)

James Martin (@Pundamentalism)
Iron Man was actually Fe Male.

Download the official Twitter app here


---SPSmith

Tweet from Shawn Garrett (@ShawnGarrett)

Shawn Garrett (@ShawnGarrett)
So we go a few days without a Pope and we already cured AIDS?

Download the official Twitter app here


---SPSmith

Persuasive Litigator: Speak to the Brain's Politics

While engaged in this task, Democrats showed greater activity in the left insula, an area in the brain that is believed to be connected to self-awareness, social awareness, and specifically the perception of others' internal states and drives. Republicans, on the other hand, showed greater activity in the right amygdala, the region associated with our reactions to fear and the fight or flight response.

---SPSmith

What happens when you study conspiracy theories? The conspiracy theorists make up conspiracy theories about you! – denialism blog


Don't argue with cranks. I can't agree more. And historically this is what has worked with denialist groups. You don't debate them as if they're honest brokers, you treat them as the defective brains that they are, and eventually, their influence dwindles, and they'll be reduced to a small community of losers sharing their delusions of grandeur and righteous indignation in some tiny corner of the internet.

The key to preventing denialism isn't in arguing with those that have already formed fixed, irrational ideas. It can only happen with prevention – early education that emphasizes logic, scientific methods, rational thought and non-ideological, pragmatic approaches to problem solving.

---SPSmith

Monday, March 04, 2013

An Inconvenient Truth: The Bush Administration Was a Disaster | The American Conservative


Most Americans remember the Bush years as a period of expanding government, ruinous war, and economic collapse. They voted for Obama the first time as a repudiation of those developments. Many did so a second time because most Republicans continue to pretend that they never happened.



---SPSmith

Bits and Pieces: Oprah at Harvard, Part II

http://harry-lewis.blogspot.com/2013/03/oprah-at-harvard-part-ii.html

she promotes the paranormal, psychic powers, new age spiritualism,
conspiracy theories, quack celebrity diets, past life regression,
angels, ghosts, alternative therapies like acupuncture and homeopathy,
anti-vaccination, detoxification, vitamin megadosing, and virtually
everything that will distract a human being from making useful
progress and informed decisions in life

---SPSmith

Article: Is Individual Liberty Over-Rated?



---SPSmith

Language Log

your passport has just been stamped for entry into the Land of Bullshit.

---SPSmith

Mitt Romney: "It Kills Me Not to Be in the White House" - Little Green Footballs


can you believe these spoiled whiny multi-millionaires? They lost the election because the American people saw through the pandering to the true Mitt Romney: the rich elitist snob who held them in contempt, and would blatantly lie in his quest for power. With every ungracious word out of their mouths, the Romneys just confirm that this impression was dead on

---SPSmith

2013 All-Arizona boys soccer


GKTim O'Brien Desert Vista Junior

---SPSmith

Sunday, March 03, 2013

Article: The Black Queen Hypothesis



---SPSmith

Thought you'd like this azcentral article

Hi,

I thought you'd like this azcentral article. Check it out:

Spending on Medicare, other programs can't be ignored
http://www.azcentral.com/business/articles/20130331medicaid-spending-us-budget.html

Sent from the azcentral iOS app. Download yours from the App Store now.



---SPSmith

Saturday, March 02, 2013

How the Across-the-Board Cuts in the Budget Control Act Will Work — Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

http://www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=3635


---SPSmith

Explanation is not Justification | Bleeding Heart Libertarians


Hayek argues inLaw, Legislation, and Liberty, and even more clearly in The Fatal Conceit, that one reason people are inclined toward socialism and have difficulty accepting the market order and its rules is that we spent a long evolutionary past in small, face-to-face, kin-based groups in which broadly collectivist and altruistic moral rules held and were effective.  That is, we have evolved moral instincts that are disposed to collectivism and socialism.  We evolved in a world where top-down or collectivist distribution of goods according to need was more the norm and could work thanks to the limited size of groups, which allowed for face-to-face, intimate knowledge of others.  For Hayek, the challenge of modernity is learning to live in a world of abstract rules of just conduct that bind us by agreement on means rather than ends.

---SPSmith