![]() One of the major complaints, as of late, I have heard about mainstream media is the lack of coverage about international incidents like the Boko Haram kidnappings in Chibok, Borno State on April 14. According to most recent news reports, about 220 of the girls are still missing. Can't really say I blame the complaints, which are kind of hard to hear over full press coverage of executive actions and how Third World broke Hilary Clinton's dumbass thought her family was when they vacated Pennsylvania Avenue. Now that LeBron James and Carmelo Anthony are tested free agent waters, those complaints are probably falling to whisper pitch. The kidnappings have become a cause celeb, complete with hashtags, drawing in notables like Angelina Jolie (I’ll put the over/under on how many of the girls she winds up adopting at 2) and Michele Obama (cause really, what does she do other than tweet or tweet from vacay?), and now, you can add Adokiye Kyrian to the list of celebrities and prominent politicos that have jumped on their Twitter pages instead of perhaps trying something meaningful. I know…who in the bluest of hells is Adokiye Kyrian? That’s a fair question. I guess if you live on the African continent, especially in and around Nigeria, you would know her as a singer. I can only imagine the clout being a hit singer in Nigeria is, comparable to being the sixth-best garbage collector in Sheboygan, Wisconsin. Although, to be equally fair with my answer, Kyrian is a UN ambassador of Peace, just as Jolie is an ambassador for Goodwill. I know we cannot and should not rely on definitive action in international incidents from A-list actresses and Z-list singers. For example, what is Angelina Jolie going to do about it, as an actress? Inflict another subpar movie on us? I don’t know about you, but I would really rather she didn’t. At least this Adokiye Kyrian chick has the common courtesy to take action in a manner that ensured people around the world, for probably the first and only time ever, heard her name in the peripheral. In an interview with the Nigerian newspaper Vanguard, the 23-year-old Kyrian offered up her virginity to the insurgent group in exchange for the release of the remaining 220 schoolgirls. Granted, she had previously offered up her virtue to any man who would buy her mother a private jet, but I guess that offer has expired. Or maybe it is first come first served, so to speak. Okay, let’s look at this a moment. If your previously unenjoyed vagina was not good enough to score your mom a private jet, just what exactly would lead you to believe it’s good enough for a hostage swap? How well do you think a group railing against the westernization of the middle eastern world is going to handle the concept of auctioning off your virginity? Not to mention, maybe it’s not even the vagina, maybe it’s the person involved. Maybe they just don’t like her music. At any rate, I can’t wait to see what Adokiye is willing to offer up her schooch in exchange for next, after this humanitarian-based publicity stunt flops like a European soccer player. The rise of Al-Qaeda-linked militants in Iraq can be traced to America's invasion of the country more than a decade ago, as it left a power vacuum and unleashed sectarian bloodletting, experts said Friday. With television footage of Sunni extremists… US stocks Friday opened higher as a positive outlook from tech giant Intel and merger news offset worry about sectarian conflict in Iraq. Five minutes into trade, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 17.47 points (0.10 percent) to 16,751.66. The broad… In another step towards reversing degenerative vision loss, scientists said Tuesday they had coaxed stem cells into growing into a tiny, light-sensing retina in a lab dish. The study is an important technical feat in using reprogrammed cells, whose… Tracy Morgan crash: Wal-Mart truck driver pleads not guilty to charges he killed 1, injured 46/11/2014
NEW BRUNSWICK — A Wal-Mart truck driver pleaded not guilty this afternoon to charges he killed one passenger of a van and injured four others, including comedian Tracy Morgan, early Saturday on the New Jersey Turnpike in Cranbury. In a five-minute… No incumbent majority leader had lost a seat in Congress since 1899, when the post was first created. Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA) broke that streak last night. He’s announced that he’ll step down from leadership within weeks. Cantor’s stunning defeat… When the iconic video game Tetris turned 30 last week, Time published an interview with its developer, Alexey Pajitnov, in which he described the challenges of publishing software in the last years of the Soviet Union. Exporting the game out of Russia… Jihadists overran Iraq's second city of Mosul, the surrounding Nineveh province and parts of Kirkuk, in a major blow on Tuesday that Washington warned threatens the entire region. Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki responded by asking parliament to declare… European stock markets closed higher Tuesday, with Frankfurt's DAX 30 touching a fresh record a day after it breached the 10,000 mark for the first time. The German index continued its winning streak to gain 0.20 percent to 10,028.80 points, while the… So, this weekend's news in the tech world was flooded with a "story" about how a "chatbot" passed the Turing Test for "the first time," with lots of publications buying every point in the story and talking about what a big deal it was. Except, almost… |
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July 2014
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