(TechCrunch)
Videos appear to show Syrian rebels shooting down military helicopter. Three amateur videos have emerged that purport to show rebels shooting down a Syrian military helicopter outside Aleppo. The videos appear roughly consistent with a claim, posted to Facebook by the Local Coordination Committees of Syria, a rebel umbrella group, that “The Free Syrian Army has downed an attack helicopter using anti-aircraft weapons in the Sheikh Salman area in the western countryside.”
(Washington Post)
My POW story. George Coffin, the last known surviving World War II Prisoner of War from Crawford County, passed away Wednesday, November 21. Before his death, Coffin recorded his experiences as a POW for his granddaughter to present to sixth grade students at Ar-We-Va. In honor of his dedication to the country, the Denison Bulletin and Review will run his remarkable story as a three-part series...
(SouthwestIowaNews.com)
Schmidt records war story for history. Gov. Terry Branstad thanked 29 Iowa veterans — including Gary Schmidt of Ankeny — for documenting their wartime memories at the fourth annual Veterans History Project earlier this month at AIB College of Business. Schmidt is an Army veteran of the Vietnam War...
(The Des Moines Register)
Some Twitter users hail Bradley Manning as a hero. U.S. Army soldier Bradley Manning leaked 750,000 documents to Wikileaks. Arrested in 2010, Manning is finally beginning pre-trial hearings this week. He’s become a martyr to those who consider his conditions in jail to be abusive, and a hero to the hacker collective known as Anonymous...
(Twitchy)
2012 “If Not Me, Then Who…” Gala. The inaugural “If Not Me, Then Who…” Gala is a national event focused on honoring the men and women who serve us. On Dec. 6, 2012, at the Union League in Philadelphia, the Travis Manion Foundation will bring corporate, community, and military leaders together to honor fallen heroes, veterans, active duty troops, and military families. The special evening will culminate with the presentations of the first-ever “If Not Me, Then Who…” and Corporate Leadership Awards, as well as Character Does Matter scholarships; these will be given to those who have gone above and beyond in challenging themselves to honor our fallen...
(The Travis Manion Foundation)
Library of Congress pulls diaries, letters from those who experienced Civil War for exhibit. Letters and diaries from those who lived through the Civil War offer a new glimpse at the arguments that split the nation 150 years ago and some of the festering debates that survive today. The Library of Congress, which holds the largest collection of Civil War documents, pulled 200 items from its holdings to reveal both private and public thoughts from dozens of famous and ordinary citizens who lived in the North and the South. Many are being shown for the first time...
(Daily Reporter)
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The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) social media division has been in the limelight recently because of the conflict with Hamas.
Now it's getting public attention once again, only this time, it's due to a posting of a picture to Facebook by its social media chief Lt. Sacha Dratwa.
The photo (displayed above) shows Dratwa at the beach with his face covered in mud.
Alongside the image the caption reads, "Obama Style".
According to Mail Online, Dratwa has come under a barrage of abuse for the picture.
Despite the nature of the photo and caption, Dratwa denies being a racist.
Via Mail Online:
He also took to Facebook to deny that he is racist and to criticise those who spread the picture.
'There have been attempts to make use of private photos from my Facebook profile in order to publicly misrepresent my opinions,' he wrote.
'I am, and have always been, completely candid about my beliefs and have nothing to hide – as reflected by my Facebook profile, which until recently was open to everyone.'
He added: 'The aforementioned photos do not reflect my beliefs and have no bearing whatsoever on my position in the IDF.'
Full story here.
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(CBC News)
Voices of Korean War Veterans” Oral History Project. High school students from throughout the United States, its territories, and Department of Defense (DoD) schools are now invited to submit their short videos to the DoD 60th Anniversary of Korean War Commemoration Committee (KW60) and the GI Film Festival (GIFF) to participate in a new educational outreach program, “Heroes Remembered: Voices of the Korean War.” The Heroes Remembered program was created to encourage high school students to help preserve the stories of our Korean War Veterans...
(eMilitary.org)
Army CID warns of online romance scams. Officials with the Army Criminal Investigation Command (CID) have issued a warning about Internet scams involving persons pretending to be soldiers. CID “continues to receive hundreds of reports from people worldwide, of various scams involving persons pretending to be U.S. soldiers serving in Afghanistan or somewhere else in the world,” according to the release...
(Fayobserver.com)
World War II submariners share stories that never grow old. The four men in yellow vests stand out in the Golden Corral restaurant, where about 30 U.S. military veterans are gathered on a recent Saturday to eat and talk about submarines. Their hair is a little grayer. They move slower. And the younger men there don't hesitate to remind anyone talking to the United States Submarine Veterans Inc. Cowtown Base to speak up so these fellows can hear. They are World War II veterans, a small but treasured generation of submariners now in their 80s and 90s...
(Star-Telegram)
Middle East foes deploy state-of-art social weaponry. You furnish the pictures, the US press baron Randolph Hearst reputedly boasted a century ago, as the story goes, and I'll furnish the war. The conflict in Gaza between Hamas and Israel, halted after a ceasefire agreed to on Wednesday, has certainly produced powerful images of death and suffering that have been immediately circulated through social networks, no newspaper baron needed...
(The Sydney Morning Herald)
Book tells how 18th-century newspapers covered war. A new book uses a collection of 18th-century newspapers to tell the story of how the Revolutionary War was reported by publications in America and Great Britain. Todd Andrlik (AN-der-lihk) is a Chicago-area marketing executive who began collecting newspapers from the 1700s five years ago. His collection now tops 400, including some that are the rarest surviving publications from the American Revolution...
(ABC6)
Library of Congress to showcase rare Civil War documents. Letters and diaries from those who lived through the Civil War offer a new glimpse at the arguments that split the nation 150 years ago and some of the festering debates that survive today. The Library of Congress, which holds the largest collection of Civil War documents, pulled 200 items from its holdings to reveal both private and public thoughts from dozens of famous and ordinary citizens who lived in the North and the South. Many are being shown for the first time...
(USA Today)
Pickering resident pens personal war story. When his mother died five years ago, Rick Pyves found 230 letters she and his father had written to one another and letters his father had written to his parents during the latter part of the Second World War, most when Ron Pyves was overseas. The Pickering resident says when he found the letters "a light bulb went on" in his head: his parents, Ron and Kay, were "eye-witnesses to history -- both in Europe and on the homefront."
(DurhamRegion)
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The Hill is reporting the conflict between Israel and Hamas has rekindled calls for Twitter to shutter the accounts of U.S.-labeled terror groups.
“Seven House Republicans asked the FBI in September to demand that Twitter take down the accounts of U.S.-designated terrorist groups, such as Hamas, Hezbollah and Somalia's al Shabaab. The letter to FBI Director Robert Mueller was spearheaded by Rep. Ted Poe (R-Texas), who said Wednesday that the recent events vindicated the request.”
What’s been particularly disturbing is the nature of the tweets by the Taliban that gloat over the death of NATO forces, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
If nothing else, this should be interesting to watch.
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(Journalism.co.uk)
Secret message found with carrier pigeon may never be deciphered. Before military forces had secure cell phones and satellite communications, they used carrier pigeons. The highly trained birds delivered sensitive information from one location to another during World War II. Often, the birds found the intended recipient. But not always. A dead pigeon was recently discovered inside a chimney in Surrey, England. There for roughly 70 years, the bird had a curious canister attached to its leg. Inside was a coded message that has stumped the experts...
(The Sideshow)
Smithsonian gathers best art of Civil War era. Paintings and photographs depicting the raw reality of the Civil War marked a major change in American art that tossed out romantic notions of war. Some of the finest artists of the day, including Winslow Homer, Eastman Johnson, Frederic Church and Sanford Gifford, painted landscapes and scenes of everyday life to show how the war transformed the nation. Their best works, along with some of the first photographs of soldiers killed on the battlefield, have been gathered by the Smithsonian American Art Museum for a major exhibition on how artists represented the war and how the war changed art...
(NBC29)
Neighbors: Postcard mailed in 1943 finally delivered to Elmira. A postcard sent to two Elmira sisters nearly seven decades ago arrived last week at the intended address, but it ended up in the hands of two different sisters. The postcard, sent July 4, 1943, from Rockford, Ill., was intended for Pauline and Theresa Leisenring, who once lived in the home along Bridgman Street in Elmira. It was sent by their parents, who were visiting their brother at the Medical Center Barracks at Camp Grant...
(Star-Gazette)
Gaza conflict: the war games of the Israel Defence Force. On November 14, the drone assassination of Hamas military chief Ahmed Al-Jaabari appeared on the Israel Defence Force's YouTube page in a grainy ten-second clip. The black-and-white footage showed Jaabari's car explode in a flash of white surrounded by a superimposed yellow target. An image with the words "eliminated" in bold letters overlayed onto Jaabari's face emerged within minutes of the attack in a tweet from the IDF's official account. In the days that followed, "points" and "badges" appeared on the military's blog, rewarding online interaction and promotion by users and assigning them a cyber military rank based on the frequency of their visits...
(Telegraph.co.uk)
Remarkable life story of 97-year-old Frampton war widow published in new book. IT'S a life story that spans a century, continents and two world wars, bringing history to life. Now 97-year-old Aine Branting has written her remarkable tales of living in wartime Berlin and then carving a new life in Australia. It is a vividly written tale of the author's childhood in Germany, of how she survived there during World War Two and bravely built a new life down under...
(This is Gloucestershire)
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According to the Wall Street Journal, Park Jeong-geun was found guilty of violating the National Security Law, which prohibits any glorification of North Korea, but was only given a suspended 10-month sentence.
And of course, Mr. Park stated he would no longer re-tweet messages from North Korean Twitter accounts.
The WSJ reports:
“The case is one of several over the past few years in which Twitter comments have tested the limits of South Korean laws covering political expression, defamation as well as the security law covering North Korean propaganda. In August, a South Korean army officer received a suspended jail term for insulting President Lee Myung-bak on Twitter.
Even before the rising use of Twitter, South Korea wrestled with conflicts between its highly-networked citizens, who enjoy some of the fastest Internet speeds and wireless services in the world, and a cultural tradition that values respect via age-based hierarchies.”
Full story here.
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What would you expect to happen if you took a photo of yourself like the one above at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldiers?
That's a picture of Lindsey Stone.
The photo, which landed on Facebook, has created a furor.
Military blog This Ain't Hell first broke the story called Douche bag being douchie earlier this week and it has exploded online, not only on social media sites but across blogs and news sites.
Jonn Lilyea writes:
"Meet Lindsey Stone, a self-proclaimed douchebag. See that picture? She thinks it’s hilarious because she’s being her douche bag self. Of course, she’s at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldiers, and she thinks that doing what she’s doing is like smoking under a “No Smoking” sign."
Now for some updates:
Lindsey Stone And Jamie Schuh Lost Their Jobs Over Infamous Facebook Photo
Lindsey Stone story on NBC
Lindsey Stone’s father “appalled”
The internet saw what you did
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Participants in the campaign put their names on an email to Twitter that demands the company “observe both the United States law and your own Terms of Service by immediately banning Hamas, the Izzadeen Al-Qassam Brigades and any related entities from operating Twitter accounts (e.g. @AlqassamBrigade).
The email warns Twitter that the local office of the United States Attorney is receiving a copy of the email “so that they can weigh appropriate legal measures in the event that you continue to permit terrorists to use your services.”
In case you're wondering, Hamas is still using Twitter with no problem.
Twitter tends to not get too involved in these types of things somehow, so it should be interesting to follow and see the outcome.
Full story here.
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Seven months ago, Barno returned from a year-long deployment to Afghanistan.
A story he wrote this week called "Watching an American Soldier Die" was featured on TIME.com.
The post talks about exactly that- watching an American Soldier die who was brought into a clinic where he was working. It’s a death that bothered him particularly more than the others.
Barno says he finds himself thinking less of Afghanistan.
He concludes his post,
“In the fast-paced, cushioned lifestyle we enjoy in our country it is easy to forget how many are still serving in Operation Enduring Freedom. As Thanksgiving approaches this week I will take a few extra moments to thank God for bringing me home safely and pray for those who are still downrange. And I will remember to ask God to bless the families of the fallen who celebrate the holidays this year for the first time without their loved one.”
You can read the full story over at Army Dentistry.
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Here are some highlights of the interview:
FAST COMPANY: Can you run us through what the IDF's Spokesperson's Unit does, and how it operates on social media. Do you have a dedicated social media staff, and has your social media strategy changed during the Gaza conflict?
"We've been operating on a variety of platforms with a number of different Twitter accounts, on Facebook, on YouTube during the course of the operation. We opened up a Tumblr account, we have a Google+ account, Pinterest ... we're operating on almost every single account we can to make sure that we can get out our message as fast as possible to as many different audiences as possible."
FAST COMPANY: For your Twitter account, what does the IDF Spokespersons' Office try to do to take followers who are, in this conflict, pro-Hamas or at least anti-IDF, to try to win them over or at least to criticize less?
"We feel that as soon as you have the facts behind you, it's just a matter of reaching out and getting the right message to people. A lot of times this just means that we are tweeting out to the Internet and hoping people pick up on it and it will generate interest. Occasionally, we will see something that we feel is blatant misinformation and we'll act on it."
FAST COMPANY: What relationship does the IDF Spokesperson's Unit have with the actual companies of Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube-Google? I understand that one of your videos, the targeted killing of Ahmed al-Jabari, was actually taken off YouTube for a brief period of time?
"We maintain a technical relationship, like most large businesses or organizations do, with these accounts.”
For details on the full interview, go to FAST COMPANY.
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(CNN)
Terror case against four Inland men steeped in social media. The case against four men with Inland Southern California roots who are accused of plotting terror attacked against U.S. forces in Afghanistan appears to be a contemporary crime case steeped in social media. Federal authorities said the suspects shared radical, anti-American comments on various social sites, posted some details on Facebook and communicated plans via the streaming video site Skype...
(The Press-Enterprise)
You Have to See This: HBO’s Witness and the Stories Behind War Photos. No matter what lies writers may tell ourselves, very often it’s the pictures that truly bring us the story–particularly in war zones and strife-torn areas, where there are brutalities you have to see to believe. But the taking of the pictures is a story in itself; a story of why certain people seek out what most people close their eyes to, run close to danger and manage to distill scenes of chaos into single defining image...
(TIME)
"Call For Film Entries" Announced For 7th Annual GI Film Festival In Washington, D.C. During Armed Forces Appreciation Month In May 2013. The award-winning GI Film Festival, the nation’s only military-themed film festival, announced today's its official "call for film entries" for its 7th Annual GI Film Festival to be held in Washington, D.C. in May 2013. The GI Film Festival is open to filmmakers of all levels of experience -- from first-timers to veteran directors and producers. Each submission must include at least one major armed forces character (real or fictitious) who is portrayed in a respectful manner...
(Cision Wire)
Israeli army, Hamas military tap power of social media. When the Israeli Defense Forces first announced it had killed top Hamas military commander Ahmed al-Jabari last week, Twitter was its medium of choice. Using the Twitter handle @IDFspokesperson, the IDF communications tweeted a photo of Jabari with the word "Eliminated" stamped across his face, along with a list of his alleged offenses. The IDF also uploaded a video of the attack that killed him to YouTube...
(USA TODAY)
The Tweets of War. The author Chuck Klosterman recently wrote, “Following any event on Twitter radically amplifies the illusion of its import. It makes you believe things matter far more than they do.” New Yorker readers defined Twitter as “Logorrhea, in brief,” which is to say, excessive and often incoherent wordiness in a hundred and forty characters or less. News outlets and the people employed by them use it to broadcast the fruits of their labor. But Twitter is rarely the place where one finds significant pronouncements...
(New Yorker)
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Truthfully, the flood of news about the Israel-Hamas war on Twitter has gone overboard.
There are a couple of new stories, but most in the last couple days talk about the exact same thing with one new detail.
Thanks to Forbes, there is a new angle.
The writer talks about how the IDF began its campaign against Hamas last week at the same time announcing the offensive on Twitter.
It mentions how the use of social media has gone from the groundbreaking to the strange.
“While the original tweet was groundbreaking, the ensuing social media battle, now active on both sides, has turned bizarre. Both Israel and Hamas have essentially live tweeted the confrontation from its beginning, mixing military updates with threats, YouTube videos, graphic images and made-for-Twitter graphics. The IDF has also been pushing its message on Tumblr and Instagram.”
In particular, Forbes discusses the graphics that have been posted to Twitter by both sides.
“It may, of course, just come down to creative and tone. The graphics posted by both sides, for instance, have been especially strange. One posted by Israel’s @IDFSpokesperson account portrayed rockets raining down on the Statue of Liberty, Big Ben, and the Eiffel tower and asked “WHAT WOULD YOU DO?”
You can see the IDF image above.
Forbes also has a graphic posted by Hamas of the Israeli Prime Minister flying in mid air with his underwear snagged on a rocket.
What’s probably one of the more important considerations pointed out by Forbes is that how people may disconnect what's really going on with the bombings and rockets, when a military at war asks its Twitter followers to “Please Retweet,” or check out its Tumblr.
Full story here.
Image via Forbes
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Outrage over Jeep's 'sexist' Facebook picture of bikini girl in army gear. A PHOTO of a scantily clad woman on Jeep Australia's Facebook page has caused a social media storm, with outraged users decrying the company as sexist. Yesterday Jeep Australia published a picture on its Facebook page of a woman posing on an army jeep in bikini bottoms and a tight T-shirt reading "I love Marine Boys''. The caption on the photo, which has done the rounds of the internet since at least 2007, read "Defence force budget cuts may not be a bad thing. Surely this Jeep and uniform are less expensive than what is currently used?''
(The Australian)
Inland Empire men used social media in terror plot, FBI says. Two of the men charged in Southern California with plotting to join Al Qaeda and the Taliban allegedly posted terrorist videos on Facebook and communicated via Skype, federal authorities said Monday night. In all, four men with Southern California ties were charged in the international terrorist plot that authorities say stretched from the Inland Empire to Afghanistan.
(Los Angeles Times)
Eric Brazil: War reporter Ed Kennedy deserves Pulitzer. On May 7, 1945, Edward Kennedy, chief of the Associated Press bureau in Paris, filed what was then the most important news story of the 20th century, Germany's World War II surrender. It was an exclusive report, headlining the front page of every Western newspaper and dominating radio broadcasts. In bringing it to the public, Kennedy had defied and defeated political censorship.
(Monterey Herald)
Tattoos Telling The Story Of A Decade Of War. Soldiers are telling the stories of more than a decade of war and not in a way most people might expect. Like them or not, tattoos are a huge part of military culture, and some soldiers say they're only scratching at the surface of deep emotional scars. Some tattoo-wearers say they only want to be understood. Army PVT John Reyes is part of the long-standing military subculture of tattooing, but he says he often feels judged by the color of his skin.
(KCEN HD)
WWII Veteran, POW Survivor to share his incredible story. The Pell City Library will welcome World War II veteran and prisoner of war survivor, Shorty Goodwin, on Wednesday, November 21st at noon in the library. He will tell his story, as the guest speaker for the library’s ongoing Wild and Wonderful Wednesday series. A Pell City resident for over 22 years, Goodwin was born in Dora, Alabama and grew up in the Pinson area, attending Tarrant High School. He entered the military at Camp Walters, Texas, near Fort Worth in February of 1942.
(St. Clair News Aegis)
How social media is rewriting the rules of modern warfare. There’s been a lot written about how the Israeli army has been using social media to broadcast the details of its latest military campaign against Hamas — live-tweeting rocket attacks, uploading YouTube videos of hits on specific victims, aggregating Instagram photos from the battlefield, and even posting infographics to a Tumblr blog.
(GigaOm)
Image source: Supplied
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I first wrote of Rob’s journey in early September, as he started a fundraiser on indiegogo with a goal of raising $5,000 to help cover expenses that he is responsible for as part of his embed.
The former Marine met his $5,000 goal in October with the help of over 80 people.
While Rob has been busy with school and preparing for his upcoming embed, he hasn’t written any new entries on his blog, but he has kept readers up to date on his Facebook page located at: http://www.facebook.com/pages/RB-Portraits
On November 10, Rob posted to Facebook:
My embed has been officially approved for Afghanistan in December! Looks like I will be with 3/9 out of Camp Lejeune! Happy Marine Corps birthday indeed!
Rob plans to blog once more before heading out of country and will be returning in late December.
If you haven't seen his artwork, you can check it out at rb-portraits.com.
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Will Twitter war become the new norm? War is not just about bombs and rockets. It’s about words. That’s been true for centuries, of course. But the public got a rude awakening this week about just how much those words can matter in the digital age when the Israel Defense Force live tweeted its strike that killed a Hamas leader. The military’s live spin about the strike, and Hamas’ response on a separate Twitter feed, have been called an unprecedented use of social media.
(CNN)
Turkish journalist missing for months in Syria freed. A Turkish journalist who went missing in Syria in August and was believed to have been held by government troops has been freed and handed to Turkish lawmakers touring the country on Saturday, the Anatolia news agency reported. “I am very happy, I am doing well,” Cuneyt Unal was quoted by the agency as saying by telephone from Syria.
(DAWN.com)
Wars, the Military and Social Media: A Sticky Wicket. In ancient China, soldiers along the Great Wall would use smoke signals conveyed from tower to tower to warn about a possible attack. The Roman Army established numerous forts and stations spread out along major road systems connecting the empire; relay points provided horses to dispatch soldiers and vehicles to quickly transmit messages. Those were rather rudimentary forms of social media but they successfully worked for centuries. Fast forward a few thousand years. The relationship between the military and social media today has developed light years beyond what the ancients envisioned. The most recent example is still playing out.
(iMediaConnection Blog)
Prisoner of War Museum opens after dark. ANDERSONVILLE, GA (WALB) - The National Prisoner of War Museum in Andersonville opened its gates this Saturday evening for folks to experience the harsh conditions of a prisoner in the winter nights during the Civil War. "It allows us to interpret, or talk about or teach about the prison conditions during the winter and during the night time," says park ranger Stephanie Steinhorst. The Andersonville National Historic site opened it's gates for folks to tour the prison camp grounds and listen to historians tell the stories of those union prisoners.
(WALB)
Pin-Ups For Vets in Playboy!. Dear Pin-Ups For Vets Supporters: Happy Thanksgiving! We wanted to share some exciting news with you! The December issue of Playboy (with Marilyn Monroe on the cover) features an entire page about our 2013 Pin-Ups For Vets Calendar! Shannon Tweed-Simmons, featured as our July calendar girl is a former "Playmate of the Year"! Shannon is wife of KISS bassist & huge troops supporter, Gene Simmons.
(Pin Up Calendars for Vets)
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There is a lot of talk among news sites about the Twitter war between Israel and Hamas.
The online war between these two groups isn't a first for social media.
One good example is the Kenya versus Al-shabaab Twitter war that started in 2011, when Kenyan military spokesman Major Emmanuel Chirchir warned Somali civilians in several different towns of imminent attacks.
On November 1, 2011, Major Chirchir who tweets under the username @MajorEChirchir tweeted: “BAIDOA, BAADHEERE, BAYDHABO, DINSUR, AFGOOYE, BWALE, BARAWE, JILIB, KISMAYO and AFMADHOW will be under attack continuously.”
That message was followed up by: “The Kenya Defence Forces urges anyone with relatives and friends in the 10 towns to advise them accordingly.”
In September 2011, NATO’s International Security Assistance Force exchanged messages online with Taliban’s spokesman via Twitter.
These are just a few examples.
While the social media campaign between Israel and Hamas is more widespread than ever before by a military, it's certainly nothing new.
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(Fast Company)
Scammer Uses Facebook Information To Scam Grandmother Out Of $2,000. We have a consumer warning for you, after a senior citizen was scammed out of a lot of money by a mysterious phone caller. The caller claimed to be a loved one needing help. Zeldena Cooper is a sweet grandmother who already has her Christmas decorations up. She said she was excited to get a recent phone call. "He called on the phone and said hello, Grandma, this is Josh," Cooper said. She said she doesn't get to talk to her grandson much, let alone see him in person, because he is stationed with the Army in Germany...
(NewsOn6)
New LA film festival highlights veterans in movies. The GI Film Festival Hollywood has chosen Veterans Day weekend to launch its first event in Los Angeles. Festival co-founder Brandon Millett said Sunday that films at the two-day festival highlight the successes and sacrifices of American military personnel and the worldwide struggle for democracy. Movies have at least one main character, real or fictitious, who play a military role with respect...
(San Jose Mercury News)
British neocon blog exposed as Israeli mouthpiece. In the past 24 hours the UK-based neo-conservative blog Harry’s Place has exposed itself as an outright propaganda outlet of the Israeli armed forces. For months I have been posting comments on the blog, which in 2006 won the annual Islamophobia award given by the Islamic Human Rights Commission. Although my comments have been generally tolerated, I receive constant verbal abuse for my beliefs as a Muslim from commentators on the blog...
(Redress Information & Analysis)
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Senator Tom A. Coburn, M.D., released a report called Department of Everything that examines five areas of the Pentagon budget, that he says, have little to do with national security where taxpayer dollars could be saved and deficits reduced without impacting our national security.
The five areas, pulled straight from the report, include:
1) Non-Military Research and Development: Research projects that have little or nothing to do with national defense or medical needs related to military service ($6 billion).
2) Education: The Defense Domestic Dependent Elementary and Secondary Schools (DDESS) that educates children of military families here in the United States and the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) programs that duplicate the work of the Department of Education and local school districts ($10.7 billion). The Department of Defense Tuition Assistance Program which provides college funding for military members on active duty and duplicates the Department of Veterans Affairs ($4.5 billion).
3) Alternative Energy: Duplicative and unnecessary alternative energy research by the Department of Defense ($700 million).
4) Grocery Stores. Pentagon-run grocery stores here in the United States ($9 billion).
5) Overhead, Support, and Supply Services. Over 300,000 military members performing civilian-type job functions and too many general officers. ($37 billion).
When it comes to social media, the report says the Pentagon’s analysis on regional slang and dialects by Twitter users is a waste of money.
“While this may be interesting to linguists or even potentially federal law enforcement agencies like the FBI, it is difficult to see how spending limited resources to study the use of the slang and dialect by Twitters users in the United States advances the mission of either the Air Force or the Navy.”
You can read the full report here.
Via: AOL
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(Al Jazeera English)
Israel, Hamas engage in Twitter war during real war. Ever since Israel killed a Hamas leader via air strike Tuesday, the two groups have delivered constant updates on attacks via Twitter, giving an eerie virtual image of a real war. The official Twitter account for the Israeli Defense Forces, in English, is @IDFspokesperson. It provides real-time claims about attacks launched on Gaza, missile fire from Hamas on Israel and links to pro-Israeli videos and articles...
(FOX19)
What happens when the military becomes its own media? One question this raises is whether such videos and photos violate the terms of service of social networks. Most networks have rules that ban graphic violence or threats, and they will have to decide how stringently to apply those restrictions to national governments...
(Poynter)
In UK, social media rants land some in jail. One teenager made offensive comments about a murdered child on Twitter. Another young man wrote on Facebook that British soldiers should "go to hell". A third posted a picture of a burning paper poppy, symbol of remembrance of war dead...
(News24)
Back Story: Photos vividly brought Civil War home. If Vietnam was the nation's first televised war, then the Civil War was the country's first photographed war, dramatically and vividly bringing into American homes the horrors and carnage their husbands, brothers and sons faced on the battlefield. In his recently published book, "Maryland's Civil War Photographs The Sesquicentennial Collection," Ross J. Kelbaugh, a Pikesville collector of vintage Maryland images, has assembled more than 400 photographs of a conflict that killed more than 600,000 Americans between 1861 and 1865...
(Baltimore Sun)
Service Members Now Have Their Own Social Network. Whether individuals are current service members or veterans, they can certainly create an account on Facebook, LinkedIn or any other social media website and work toward making the types of connections that can give them a career advantage. While LinkedIn is designed for professionals, Facebook and Twitter users tend to be more casual...
(US News University Directory)
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A photo of Misharawi holding his dead baby opens the story.
Via The WashPo:
"An Israeli round hit Misharawi’s four-room home in Gaza Wednesday, killing his son, according to BBC Middle East bureau chief Paul Danahar, who arrived in Gaza earlier Thursday. Misharawi’s sister-in-law was also killed, and his brother wounded. Misharawi told Danahar that, when the round landed, there was no fighting in his residential neighborhood."
The story has hundreds of comments from readers.
Nearly 500 comments at the time of this post going online.
Some of the comments are messages of condolences, while many are not.
You can read the full story here.
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