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Explosions that killed an alleged suicide bomber and wounded two others in central Stockholm, Sweden on Saturday have been dubbed "an act of terrorism" by Swedish police. The two explosions occurred within minutes of each other in a district full of Christmas shoppers, after Swedish police reportedly received threatening e-mails ten minutes before the bombs went off. It is believed that Iraqi Taimour Abdulwahab Al-Abdaly, a twenty-nine year-old who lived in the UK with a wife and three kids, blew himself up after trying to set off a car bomb. On Sunday evening, London police executed a search warrant in Bedfordshire, north of London, in connection with the Stockholm blasts. If confirmed as a suicide bombing, the attack would be the first of its kind in Sweden.
Sweden suicide bomber from UK [The Sun]
Swedish security police: Violence was 'an act of terrorism' [CNN]
Stockholm blasts: Police search Bedfordshire property [BBC News]
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Filed Under: stockholm, stockholm suicide bomb, suicide bombers, taimour abdulwahab al-abdaly, terrorble, terrorism
This week we highlight 59 reasons to love New York, whether it's Lloyd Blankfein's unstoppable smile, Matt Lauer's secret ninja style, having good luck even when we have terrible luck, or the fact that we like (and sometimes hate) Gwyneth Paltrow just the way she is.
But our far-ranging list is not exhaustive, and we want hear what you love about New York. Leave you answer in comments below, and check back here throughout the week as we highlight your best answers.
Filed Under: reasons to love new york,
Veteran U.S. diplomat Richard Holbrooke, President Barack Obama's special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, is in critical condition after surgery today to repair a torn aorta. The sixty-nine year-old reportedly fell ill Friday evening and was admitted to a nearby hospital. White House adviser David Axelrod confirmed that Holbrooke suffered an aortic bleed: "Many people would have succumbed to that but Richard is fighting through it." [Reuters]
Read more posts by Mike Vilensky
Filed Under: richard holbrooke, diplomats, politics
The folks at Reddit have uncovered what appears to be WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange's OKCupid dating profile. The uber-private Assange would never be an online dater, you say! But, the last time this user accessed the profile was way back in 2006, when Julian Assange wasn't the cable-dumping anti-hero he is today. Back then, he was just a danger-loving lonely boy. So, if this profile is The Real Him - and the pictures of him and the fake name "HarryHarrison" seem to suggest that it is - then what do we learn about the enigma of Julian Assange by examining the face he wanted to show the world? Or, at least, the face he showed the world he hoped to sleep with?
He is straight. Well, we could have guessed this much, already.
He is 87% slutty. Okay, we could have guessed that too. People never change. Anyway, he confirms it in his "self-summary:" "Want a regular, down to earth guy? Keep moving. I am not the droid you're looking for. Passionate and often pig headed activist intellectual seeks siren for love affair." And in the "Test" section, he came back "87% dominating, 87% slut." But also "Strong Democrat." On the "I'm Really Good At" section, he wrote "A gentleman never tells." So he's also kind of cheesy and gross.
He likes tough, dangerous girls. "I like women from countries that have sustained political turmoil," he wrote. "Western culture seems to forge women that are valueless and inane. OK. Not only women!"
Despite the fangirls, he gets lonely: "Although I am pretty intellectually and physically pugnacious I am very protective of women and children," he wrote. And while he said, "I have asian teengirl stalkers," he ceded: "I could adapt to anything except the loss of female company and carbon." (And carbon. Ha.)
But, mostly, the Julian Assange on OkCupid seems like any pretentious outcast looking for love on the Internet, if more arrogant and vaguely misogynist. It's clear, however, that even back in '06, he was pretty sure that he was heading toward serious international intrigue, as he was also seeking a siren for "occasional international conspiracy." How did he spend his time? "Changing the world through passion, inspiration and trickery," and "directing a consuming, dangerous human rights project which is, as you might expect, male dominated." As for the user name: "Harry Harrison is a scifi writer that was popular in the '70s and '80s for his Stainless Steel Rat character," reports a commenter at Reddit. "The SSR was an intergalactic criminal mastermind with a conscious who was too smart to get caught." So, Julian Assange: Still not really that much like us.
Behold: Julian Assange's profile on Okcupid [Reddit via Runnin' Scared/VV, Gawker]
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Filed Under: loose lips, julian assange, okcupid, wikileaks
Yesterday, the Gizmodo Twitter account read, "Gawker.com, Gizmodo.com, Lifehacker.com hacked, 1.5 million user names / e-mails / passwords taken," shortly after a Gawker post went up about Barack Obama calling WikiLeaks "deplorable." The Gizmodo tweeter also demanded support for WikiLeaks. Crazy! Except then, Scott Kidder, Gawker Media's director of editorial operations, said there's "no evidence to suggest any Gawker user accounts were compromised, and passwords [are] encrypted, not stored in plain text anyway," and the tweets were thought to be a prank and promptly deleted, though not before Runnin' Scared took a screenshot. Seemed like a false alarm, but, actually, the false alarm was a false alarm. Today, a Gawker post reads:
Our user databases appear to have been compromised. The passwords were encrypted. But simple ones may be vulnerable to a brute-force attack. You should change your Gawker password and on any other sites on which you've used the same passwords. We're deeply embarrassed by this breach. We should not be in the position of relying on the goodwill of the hackers who identified the weakness in our systems. And, yes, the irony is not lost on us.
Gawker also told Mediaite:
Out of an abundance of caution, you should also change your company email password and any passwords that may have appeared in your email messages.
And just when Gawker started a user dating service!
After Gawker urged users to change their passwords, another post went up, under Adrian Chen's byline, asking people to please not download the Gawker source code, with a link to download the Gawker source code, noting that Gawker has "entered into the process of complete code review."
We have discovered various copies of our source code available for download. We ask you to NOT download this, as this WILL infringe our copyright. On the one hand, please know that we at Gawker Media take your information VERY seriously, all user data is protected and looked after in accordance with our policy. However, we do not believe our data has been compromised, so please relax on that front. We follow the most stringent, industry standard, methods in order to ensure the integrity and safety of your data. We hope that despite the full disclosure of GANJA, we still hold our iron grip on our data. Due to the leak of the GANJA framework from within our company, we have entered into the process of complete code review to enhance and enforce our privacy policy.
As one fearless Gawker commenter put it, even as his or her information might be stolen: "Pass the popcorn. This should be good."
Update: The post with the link to the Gawker source code has been taken down, and then reposted, and then taken down — indicating that Gawker's content management system has been hacked. It was reportedly posted by a group calling themselves Gnosis (who dubiously claim they are not 4chan or "Anonymous") and links to a torrent that includes all of Gawker Media's source code, along with a list of commenter names, e-mail addresses, and passwords, as well as the user names, e-mail addresses, and passwords of Gawker writers, editors, photographers, and business people, all downloadable at the Pirate Bay. The torrent also comes packaged with this message:
So, here we are again with a monster release of ownage and data droppage.
Previous attacks against the target were mocked, so we came along and raised the bar a little. Fuck you gawker, hows this for "script kids"? Your empire has been compromised, Your servers, Your database's, Online accounts and source code have all be ripped to shreds! You wanted attention, well guess what, You've got it now!
The file reportedly also includes internal chats and e-mails, as well as the message: "We've not done yet, we have other targets in our sights, you will all soon realise that nothing is sacred on the internet. Shouts to all the crew at #gnosis! Hello to everyone at 4chan and #operationpayback."
Meanwhile, Gawker writer Adrian Chen is apparently locked out. He tweeted: "The worst part about this is I can't access the CMS to blog about it."
Oh, boy.
Commenting Accounts Compromised - Change Your Passwords [Gawker]
Gawker Hacked by Gnosis, Site in Chaos [Runnin' Scared/VV]
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Filed Under: gawker, 4chan, adrian chen, gnosis, hacks, scary things, the internet
Though luxury gym-chain owner David Barton and beloved club promoter Susanne Bartsch have reportedly separated after fifteen years of marriage, the two reunited in the name of the holidays on Friday at their 10th Annual Toy Drive, held inside David Barton Gym's Astor Place location. Barton and Bartsch didn't chat each other up too much — or chat with reporters about their allegedly defunct relationship — but they both seemed to be in good spirits, and they posed for photos together (with a couple of people in between them). As the party began, Bartsch, 59, got onstage and greeted everyone: "Merry Fucking Christmas!" And then performers dressed as monkeys lip-synched "Total Eclipse of the Heart," naturally.
Marc Jacobs, mingling with drag queens and other gymgoers at the party, was slightly less excited about the holidays: "I don’t really celebrate Hanukkah, and I don’t really celebrate Christmas," he told us. But, "I like doing this toy drive, I mean if it were a Hanukkah toy drive I’d do it, or a Christmas toy drive I’d do it." Since we were surrounded by gym equipment, we asked if he's had any embarrassing gym moments. "Maybe in the beginning I felt embarrassed about going to the gym, but I got over it." (Sometimes it seems like Marc Jacobs got over everything, and that's why we love him.) Meanwhile, Richie Rich, who used to be Susanne Bartsch’s assistant, informed us that he is a card-carrying David Barton Gym member, and he had some gym etiquette advice: "When you take a shower and the other guy is staring at you and then he rips the shower curtain open, just throw soap at them or take shampoo." Noted.
Of course, we were all gathered in the name of charity: "It’s a great thing to give a toy to someone who doesn’t know who gave it, that’s real giving," David Barton explained to us. "The season is really about wanting stuff. So it sounds corny but this is real giving because it’s anonymous. I mean, it's kind of great." Awww! That said, he still offered to write us a doctor's note in order to get us out of our Crunch membership.
Read more posts by Jayme Cyk
Filed Under: party lines, beginning to look a lot like christmas, david barton, david barton gym, marc jacobs, richie rich, susanne bartsch
A massive snowstorm has been moving through the Midwest this weekend, and Wisconsin governor Jim Doyle has declared a state of emergency for 72 counties as power outages sweep through the state. In addition to Wisconsin, the snowstorm hit parts of Iowa and Minnesota, where pounding snow caused the roof of the Metrodome in Minneapolis to collapse. Sunday's New York Giants and Minnesota Vikings game planned for the Metrodome has been rescheduled for Monday in Detroit. Check out this crazy video someone somehow took from inside the Metrodome, as snow poked holes in its ceiling:
Read more posts by Mike Vilensky
Filed Under: weather, metrodome, midwest, minnesota vikings, new york giants, snowstorms
Six years after they first met at Vogue's Costume Institute Gala at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (naturally), David Lauren proposed to Lauren Bush inside the same museum on Friday evening, surprising her with "a brilliant diamond ring," before "the happy couple" went arm-in-arm into a hansom carriage, according to the Post. David, 39, Ralph Lauren's son, is executive vice-president at Polo Ralph Lauren, while "Beautiful Lauren," 26, granddaughter of President George H.W. Bush, has "helped feed more than 60 million impoverished children through the sale of her Feed Projects line of burlap bags," according to "Page Six." The two plan to wed in 2011. Basically, everything sounds absolutely perfect here, except for one thing: Her name will be Lauren Lauren, if she takes her husband's last name. That said, for a left-leaning New Yorker, the last name "Bush" probably had its own set of problems, and now she can shed the Republican-connoting title forever, if she wants to. In any case: Congrats to these two. Let the media's wedding frenzy commence.
Lauren & Lauren are mergin' [Page Six/NYP]
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Filed Under: the most important weddings in the world, david lauren, lauren bush, power couples, socialites
The Journal has more information on Mark Madoff, after his apparent suicide yesterday at age 46, describing a man "unalterably bitter" after his father's confession that their business had been "one big lie": He often asked people how a father could do this to his sons, one friend noted, and he hadn't spoken with either of his parents in two years. Whereas his brother, Andrew Madoff, started biking more and working with his fiancée in her consulting business over the past two years, Mark Madoff "tested the waters for a job, but there were no takers." Instead, he recently started working on an iPad app that would offer customized information based on a person's professional interests. A source said that both the brothers were under criminal investigation in recent months, and Mark was "distraught" about reports that suggested he was part of his father's fraud.
Mark Madoff and the Fraud's Burden [WSJ]
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Filed Under: mark madoff, bernie madoff, ruth madoff, sad things
Elizabeth Edwards's funeral was held today near her home in Raleigh, North Carolina. Open to the public, the funeral drew a crowd of over 1,000 people, including Senator John Kerry and former senator John Edwards, Elizabeth's estranged husband. Outside the funeral before it began, "[John] held hands with their youngest two children," the Times reports. "He leaned down and whispered to their daughter, Emma Claire. 'You O.K.?' he asked. The 12-year-old nodded, and the family filed inside." In a eulogy, Elizabeth's newly engaged daughter Catharine said: "One thing that is true and will never change is that we are a family. She would do anything in the world to protect us."
As for the Westboro Baptist Church's planned protests? The church members were kept two blocks from the entrance to the funeral, and, in the face of this death, even their craziness fizzled: "In the end, only five Westboro congregants showed for the protest, which took place in a cold, steady rain," CNN reports. Meanwhile, 200 to 300 people showed up for a counter-protest, with signs reading “love” and “hero.”
More than 1,200 at Edwards funeral [CNN]
Elizabeth Edwards Eulogized as Defender of Her Family [NYT]
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Filed Under: elizabeth edwards, cate edwards, funerals, john edwards, obits, westboro baptist church
Time was, it seemed rude to text or take a phone call at the dinner table. And even though it seems like society has yet to come to a definitive stance on when it is and isn't acceptable to whip out your cell phone, that particular etiquette issue is so early 2000s, when texting, calling, and BrickBreaker were the only things most people did with their phones. Today, the Times highlights a new phone-at-the-table question, as more and more people have smartphones on their person at all times: If you're in the midst of a heated, passionate argument — about, let's say, the world's best-selling potato chip flavor (ahem) — while dining, is it socially acceptable to end the argument by just Googling the thing rather than fighting about it for another hour?
Nobody's sure. Obviously, people who write books about etiquette as if it still matters a whole lot don't like tableside Googling: "Emily Post’s Table Manners for Kids, published in 2009, says bluntly, 'Do NOT use your cellphone or any other electronic devices at the table.'" No surprise there. And over at The Atlantic, Derek Brown, a bartender in Washington, laments that smartphones are “obliterating” the bartender’s traditional role as "the professor of the people." His role, that is:
"Once upon a time the barkeep was expected to have at least a rudimentary knowledge of sports, history, politics and science," Brown explained. "If an impasse was met in opposing sides, the attention of both claimants naturally turned toward the bartender. If the bartender said so, you were wrong.”
Still, the Times' Bruce Feiler seems mostly in favor of Googling at the table:
What if a few clicks of the smartphone can answer a question, solve a dispute or elucidate that thoughtful point you were making? What if that PDA is not being used to escape a conversation but to enhance it?
Most people the paper spoke to seem to support it, too:
Despite these downsides, I’ve found far more people willing to support bringing much needed truth into dinner-table debates. These advocates include some of the most vocal critics of technology’s intrusion on contemporary life. Jaron Lanier, a Silicon Valley inventor warned in his jeremiad, You Are Not a Gadget, published earlier this year, that technology is limiting the ability of humans to think for themselves. Still, even Mr. Lanier, a well-known critic of Facebook and other social media, told me that brandishing my BlackBerry at an ice cream party was not a threat to social cohesion. "In my opinion, if your wife tells you not to Google at dinner, then she’s right," he said. "If anybody else tells you, then you're right."
The Village Voice cedes most people are doin' it, anyway:
Everyone has anecdotes like the ones Feiler uses in his article, some probably as many as three daily. If trivia and critical engagement about the arts and politics are part of your mealtime fun, and you often eat socially with either friends or family, then you know what he means.
We're going to say: No, don't do this! The point of the tableside argument isn't really to anoint a winner or a loser, but to have a largely pointless fact-based argument until everyone's exhausted and eventually changes the subject (while still thinking about whatever the previous issue was). That's the fun part of eating with friends and family as opposed to alone when you can Google to your heart's content. And then, when everyone pretends to have calmed down about the best-selling potato-chip flavor (it's BBQ sour cream n onion BBQ), someone can bring it up, like, months later, using Google as evidence that they were right, and by that point everyone's over it and cedes that their opponent won. And then everybody wins. Well, what say you?
Should You Google at Dinner? [NYT via Runnin' Scared/VV]
Read more posts by Mike Vilensky
Filed Under: modern problems, arguments, etiquette, google, tech
Because starlets apparently still move magazines, the photos reportedly went for a cool $100,000 to a weekly, possibly People, after Richie's reps played the magazines against one another to drive up the price. And the wedding's today! Admittedly, for a number of reasons, we are interested in Nicole Richie's wedding photos, but she had better be shoving cake into her husband's face or something at that price. [Page Six/NYP]
Read more posts by Mike Vilensky
Filed Under: media, nicole richie, people magazine, the most important weddings in the world, weddings
In the week before Elizabeth Edwards's death, her 28-year-old daughter Cate, an anti-discrimination lawyer, told her mom she was engaged to longtime sweetheart Trevor Upham, whom she met at Princeton. A friend said: "Elizabeth was thrilled." [People]
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Filed Under: nice things, cate edwards, elizabeth edwards, engagements, john edwards, trevor upham
Twenty-four-year-old Nick Brooks was arrested last night and charged with attempted murder and strangulation in the death of Sylvie Cachay, his swimsuit-designer ex-girlfriend, who was found dead in a bathtub at the Soho House earlier this week. (A source said cops can prove he choked her, but cannot prove the choking caused her death.) Brooks is the son of Oscar-winning composer Joseph Brooks, who was indicted last year on 82 counts of sex-related charges, including rape, after luring women to his apartment with the promise of jobs in the film industry. A week before her death, Cachay had reportedly told Brooks, "If you don't prove to me that you can be a solid citizen, I will not consider marriage."
Ex-beau charged with attempted murder and strangulation [NYP]
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Filed Under: nick brooks, attempted murder, awful things, nicholas brooks, soho house, special victims
Fresh off their WikiLeaks cable dump, the Times unleashed the text of new recordings from Nixon's presidency, released this week by the Nixon Presidential Library and Museum. While previously released recordings have detailed Nixon’s well-known animosity toward Jews and black people, these tapes "suggest an added layer of complexity to Nixon’s feeling," according to the Times. For example, "He and his aides seem to make a distinction between Israeli Jews, whom Nixon admired, and American Jews." And those Italians! He has real mixed feelings on them. But he doesn't call it prejudice:
In a conversation Feb. 13, 1973, with Charles W. Colson, a senior adviser who had just told Nixon that he had always had "a little prejudice," Nixon said he was not prejudiced but continued: "I’ve just recognized that, you know, all people have certain traits."
"For example, the Irish can’t drink. Virtually every Irish I’ve known gets mean when he drinks. Particularly the real Irish. The Italians, of course, those people course don’t have their heads screwed on tight. They are wonderful people, but," and his voice trailed off.
A moment later, Nixon returned to Jews: "The Jews are just a very aggressive and abrasive and obnoxious personality. What it is, it’s the latent insecurity. Most Jewish people are insecure. And that’s why they have to prove things."
And, finally, on black people:
"Bill Rogers has got — to his credit it's a decent feeling — but somewhat sort of a blind spot on the black thing because he's been in New York," Nixon said. "He says well, ‘They are coming along, and that after all they are going to strengthen our country in the end because they are strong physically and some of them are smart.' So forth and so on.
"My own view is I think he's right if you're talking in terms of 500 years," he said. "I think it's wrong if you're talking in terms of 50 years. What has to happen is they have be, frankly, inbred. And, you just, that's the only thing that's going to do it, Rose."
The 37th president of the United States, everybody.
In Tapes, Nixon Rails About Jews and Blacks [NYT]
Read more posts by Mike Vilensky
Filed Under: early and awful, nixon, president nixon, racism