Present Tensed

Links/Articles Tagged Between January 10th and January 16th

Here are some links that I’ve tagged recently. This set is from Jan­u­ary 10th through Jan­u­ary 16th:

• Com­bine PDFs (Apple — Down­loads — Automa­tor Actions) ::
• Barack Obama Pop Art — chicagotribune.com ::
• Report Finds Major U.S. Com­pa­nies Have Off­shore Tax Havens — washingtonpost.com :: GAO, search­ing pub­licly avail­able data filed with the Secu­ri­ties and Exchange Com­mis­sion, deter­mined that 83 of the 100 largest pub­licly traded cor­po­ra­tions and 63 of the 100 largest fed­eral con­trac­tors main­tain sub­sidiaries in coun­tries gen­er­ally con­sid­ered havens for avoid­ing taxes.
• A ‘Sec­ond Life’ For Edu­ca­tors : Jan­u­ary 2009 : THE Jour­nal :: One of the strengths of the grow­ing edu­ca­tion com­mu­nity in Sec­ond Life is its “fun­da­men­tal pre­dis­po­si­tion to col­lab­o­rate,” says John Lester, who leads the edu­ca­tion and health­care mar­ket devel­op­ment group at Lin­den Lab.
• ‘The Speech’: An Experts’ Guide — Room for Debate Blog — NYTimes.com :: What does Barack Obama need to do in his inau­gural address?
• Dear Sir Obama — Pres­i­den­tial Advice — NYTimes.com :: The chil­dren had been inter­ested in the elec­tion all year but few of them, truth be told, really thought Mr. Obama would be elected.
• This Inau­gu­ra­tion Is Inspir­ing Class­rooms Nation­wide — NYTimes.com :: After mil­lions of stu­dents watch Barack Obama take the pres­i­den­tial oath on tele­vi­sion, some will recite poetry, many will hear brass bands play patri­otic music and not a few will debate whether Mr. Obama’s ora­tory equaled the elo­quence of John F. Kennedy.
• Cora­line — Google Book Search ::
• Twit­ter­ing Tips for Begin­ners — NYTimes.com :: Twitter.com is all the rage among geeks, although it has more hype than users at this point.
• Fash­ion Icon Michelle Obama Puts Spot­light on Chicago’s ‘Fresh’ Con­ser­vatism — washingtonpost.com :: But in the pop­u­lar con­scious­ness, Chicago has never been about fash­ion. Until now. When Michelle Obama stepped into the spot­light with her Maria Pinto sheaths, style sud­denly became one of this city’s high-profile exports.
• Flickr my back­ground: Put your lat­est Flickr image in your Twit­ter back­ground ::
• The Uni­ver­sity of Chicago in top ranks for Peace Corps vol­un­teers | The Uni­ver­sity of Chicago :: For the sec­ond year in a row, the Uni­ver­sity has pro­duced the most Peace Corps vol­un­teers in the country.
• Low­ery address to com­mence Mar­tin Luther King Jr. Week cel­e­bra­tion | The Uni­ver­sity of Chicago :: Just days before deliv­er­ing the bene­dic­tion at Barack Obama’s pres­i­den­tial inau­gu­ra­tion in Wash­ing­ton, D.C., the Rev. Joseph Low­ery will kick off the University’s week­long Mar­tin Luther King Jr. cel­e­bra­tion, titled “Now is the time to make real the promises of democ­racy,” on Thurs­day, Jan. 15 with a speech at Rock­e­feller Memo­r­ial Chapel.
• Obey Giant — WORLDWIDE PROPAGANDA DELIVERY :: SR: Art!
• Obamicon.Me — Cre­ate Your Obam­i­con ::
• Police: Man sold teen daugh­ter into mar­riage for cash, beer, meat — CNN.com :: Mar­tinez had arranged through a third party to have his daugh­ter marry the older teenager… In exchange, Galindo was to pay Mar­tinez $16,000 and pro­vide him with 160 cases of beer, 100 cases of soda, 50 cases of Gatorade, two cases of wine, and six cases of meat…
• Obama’s Other Break­through: A Big-City Pres­i­dent — TIME :: he argued that there was a “new met­ro­pol­i­tan real­ity” in which “strong cities are the build­ing blocks of strong regions.” Leav­ing cities to mud­dle through on their own while focus­ing on sub­urbs and exurbs wasn’t enough, he said, rail­ing against politi­cians who remain “wed­ded to an out­dated ‘urban’ agenda that focuses exclu­sively on the prob­lems in our cities and … con­fuses antipoverty pol­icy with a met­ro­pol­i­tan strategy.”
• Ford Tau­rus Tempts With Tech. And Butt Mas­sagers. | Autopia :: it’s a deal at $25,995 or so. But it’s the gad­gets, from the oblig­a­tory Sync voice-activated com­mu­ni­ca­tion and enter­tain­ment sys­tem to butt-massaging seats (really!) and cap­less gas tank, that have our inner geek grinning
• Study Finds Ide­ol­ogy Fueled Jus­tice Dept. Hir­ings — washingtonpost.com :: The key offi­cial, for­mer Deputy Assis­tant Attor­ney Gen­eral Bradley Schloz­man, favored employ­ees who shared his polit­i­cal views and derided oth­ers as “libs” and “pinkos,” the report said.
• Stu­dent auc­tions vir­gin­ity, sparks online debate :: “I think it’s a tremen­dous idea. Why lose it to some guy in the back­seat of a Toy­ota when you can pay for your edu­ca­tion?” he told reporters.
• Geo­graphic Infor­ma­tion Sys­tems — GIS Map­ping Ser­vices through Pol­i­cyMap :: GIS and Demo­graphic Map­ping Made Easy: Pol­i­cyMap is an inno­v­a­tive geo­graphic infor­ma­tion sys­tem which allows you to eas­ily cre­ate cus­tom maps, tables, and charts.
• The Sev­enth Cir­cle of Hell :: SR: Here’s a place to visit!
• Mor­gan Park Acad­emy look­ing for new head­mas­ter :: The South­town­Star :: :: “What’s pretty unique is about 60 per­cent of the stu­dents can be iden­ti­fied as multi-cultural. It’s a very diverse com­mu­nity, and what’s really cool about that is it’s all sec­ond nature. I prob­a­bly visit 10 to 15 schools a year and I could not iden­tify any cliques on campus.”
• GO TO 2040: Met­ro­pol­i­tan Chicago’s first truly com­pre­hen­sive regional plan :: To plan a pros­per­ous future for our region, the Chicago Met­ro­pol­i­tan Agency for Plan­ning (CMAP) has launched GO TO 2040, met­ro­pol­i­tan Chicago’s first truly com­pre­hen­sive plan­ning campaign
• Drop 10 Face­book Friends, Get a Whop­per :: a new pro­mo­tion from Burger King called Whop­per Sac­ri­fice is hand­ing out free Whop­pers to any­one will­ing to sac­ri­fice 10 Face­book friends to the Whop­per gods.
• Devex – Jobs, busi­ness oppor­tu­ni­ties, pro­fes­sional net­work­ing, and news for pro­fes­sion­als work­ing in inter­na­tional devel­op­ment, global health, and for­eign assis­tance ::
• The Dying of the Light — The Drawn Out Indig­ni­ties of the Amer­i­can Way of Death — washingtonpost.com :: This isn’t about euthana­sia. It’s not about spi­ral­ing health care costs. It’s about the gift of life — and death. It is about liv­ing life and death with dig­nity, and let­ting go.
• 08bailoutgraph.jpg 494×339 pix­els :: the 2008 bailout vs. other large gov­ern­ment projects
• Hyde Park Progress: The Park­ing Meter Deal: Right Idea, Wrong Rea­sons :: San Fran­cisco is pio­neer­ing a high-tech pilot pro­gram that will let park­ing meters charge a true mar­ket rate, based on hourly vari­a­tions in demand (from $0.25 to $6) at indi­vid­ual meters in a given neighborhood.
• Eddie C Camp­bell on MySpace Music ::
• Apple Learn­ing Inter­change — Pho­tog­ra­phy on the iPhone ::
• Zim­babwe troops eat ele­phants | BBC NEWS :: The offi­cer said the (ele­phant) meat was a wel­come relief, with the web­site say­ing sol­diers had pre­vi­ously only been given sadza (maize-meal por­ridge) to eat
• Bashir case ‘may spark attacks’ | BBC NEWS :: the head of Sudan’s National Secu­rity and Intel­li­gence Ser­vice, Salah Gosh, said they could not pre­dict the reac­tions of “out­laws” who could tar­get for­eign­ers in the wake of a deci­sion by the ICC.
• Srour on Edu­ca­tion, African Schools, and Build­ing Tomor­row | Econ­Talk | Library of Eco­nom­ics and Lib­erty :: Srour dis­cusses how he tries to make sure that his orga­ni­za­tion accom­plishes more than bricks and mor­tar and the rewards and chal­lenges of a start-up non-profit.
• Build­ing Tomor­row: Des­ti­na­tion Kam­pala :: an inter­na­tional non-profit orga­ni­za­tion empow­er­ing young peo­ple to raise funds & aware­ness to ben­e­fit vul­ner­a­ble chil­dren in sub-Saharan Africa.
• the primerid­ian :: new offi­cial site
• Ubuntu and Its Leader Set Sights on the Main­stream — NYTimes.com :: All the fuss at the meet­ing cen­tered on some­thing called Ubuntu and a man named Mark Shut­tle­worth, the charis­matic 35-year-old bil­lion­aire from South Africa who func­tions as the spir­i­tual and finan­cial leader of this cod­ing clan.
• Obama’s Worst Pak­istan Night­mare — What to do About Pakistan’s Nuclear Arse­nal — David E. Sanger — NYTimes.com ::
• The rights and wrongs of killing civil­ians | Pro­por­tional to what? | The Econ­o­mist :: Pro­por­tion­al­ity is a slip­pery idea. It has two dif­fer­ent mean­ings in West­ern the­ory. On the grounds for going to war, jus ad bel­lum, the cause must be impor­tant enough to jus­tify force; any good that will fol­low must out­weigh the inevitable pain and destruc­tion. In the con­duct of war, jus in bello, any action must weigh the mil­i­tary gain against the likely harm to civilians.
• Mus­lim Couple’s Annul­ment Becomes National Polit­i­cal Issue in France — washingtonpost.com :: From the left and right came a bar­rage of crit­i­cism, sug­gest­ing that the deci­sion had given French legal sanc­tion to a Muslim’s demand that his bride be a vir­gin. Eliz­a­beth Bad­in­ter, a long­time women’s rights cam­paigner, said she felt “shame” that such a court rul­ing could be handed down in France.
• For Zimbabwe’s Dead, a Final Indig­nity — washingtonpost.com :: for many, the things that once seemed cru­cial for a dig­ni­fied farewell are gone. No more flow­ers or fancy coffins. No more engraved gran­ite tomb­stones, which cost hun­dreds of dol­lars and are often stolen any­way. No more mourn­ing for a week over meals of warm cab­bage, soft corn­meal and freshly slaugh­tered beef.
• The poten­tial of geot­her­mal power in Africa | Con­ti­nen­tal Rift | The Econ­o­mist :: Some 18 geot­her­mal sites in the Ethiopian part of the Rift Val­ley and in the Danakil depres­sion on the bor­der with Eritrea and Dji­bouti have been iden­ti­fied. The Ethiopi­ans hope for 440MW of geot­her­mal power against their present energy capac­ity of 790MW. Geot­her­mal could be an alter­na­tive to hydro­elec­tric dams, which pro­vide most of the region’s power but are vul­ner­a­ble to drought.
• Early Amer­i­can Echoes in South Africa? — NYTimes.com :: The leader of the A.N.C. Youth League — a posi­tion Mr. Man­dela held decades ago — has threat­ened to “take up arms and kill for Zuma.” His col­leagues keep call­ing COPE fol­low­ers “cock­roaches” — the Hutu epi­thet for Tut­sis dur­ing the Rwan­dan geno­cide. The old guer­rilla anthem Lethu Mshini Wami (“Bring Me My Machine Gun”) is sung by pro-Zuma crowds and Mr. Zuma him­self called his rivals “witches,” who, in Zulu tra­di­tion, were killed by stakes dri­ven into their anuses. The tone is very dangerous.
• NBA Player Char­i­ties: Shoot­ing Poorly From the Field — True­Hoop By Henry Abbott :: reported rev­enue of at least $31 mil­lion between 2005 and 2007, but only about 44 cents of every dol­lar raised — or $14 mil­lion of that $31 mil­lion — actu­ally reached needy causes. The aver­age NBA player foun­da­tion put just 51 cents of each dol­lar it spent toward char­i­ta­ble pro­grams, well below the 65 cents most phil­an­thropic watch­dog groups view as acceptable
• A Gaza War Full of Traps and Trick­ery — NYTimes.com :: Israel has also man­aged to block cell­phone band­width, so very few ama­teur cell­phone pho­tographs are get­ting out of Gaza.
• 14 Per­cent of U.S. Adults Can’t Read — Yahoo! :: Sta­tis­tics released by the U.S. Edu­ca­tion Depart­ment this week show that some 32 mil­lion U.S. adults lack basic prose lit­er­acy skill. That means they can’t read a news­pa­per or the instruc­tion on a bot­tle of pills.
• Obama takes a break for some chili and sausage — Yahoo! News :: Barack Obama dropped in Sat­ur­day after­noon for a bite to eat with Washington’s mayor, Adrian Fenty, at Ben’s Chili Bowl, the ven­er­a­ble diner in Washington’s U Street district.
• Gov­ern­ing Party, Fac­ing Chal­lenge, Moves Left in South Africa — NYTimes.com :: In a coun­try where unem­ploy­ment — even nar­rowly defined — is 23 per­cent and where slow­ing growth is likely to hit man­u­fac­tur­ing jobs, both the A.N.C. and its break­away, the Con­gress of the Peo­ple, known as COPE, are posi­tion­ing them­selves as agents of change — a chal­leng­ing task since the lead­ers of both par­ties have been involved in run­ning the coun­try for years.
• Casu­al­ties of War: Pales­tin­ian Mod­er­ates — Yahoo! News :: While Israeli and U.S. off­i­cals have sug­gested that pound­ing Hamas in Gaza would strengthen Fatah and those Pales­tin­ian mod­er­ates will­ing to engage in the peace process, the oppo­site is occur­ring on the ground.
• Pow­ell endorses Obama ser­vice ini­tia­tive — CNN.com :: The Web site, www.USAservice.org, will allow peo­ple to offer their time or resources and be con­tacted by peo­ple in the com­mu­nity who need that type of help.
• 44 Places to Go in ’09 — Inter­ac­tive Graphic — NYTimes.com ::

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