Bombs Away

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The Sunday Times of London has a story today, though it's thinly and perhaps questionably sourced, saying that "Western intelligence agencies believe doctors working with Al-Qaeda in Yemen have been trained to plant explosives inside the bodies of suicide bombers."

Bombs can be implanted in the abdomens and breasts of suicide bombers, the story says. That would evade the vaunted "whole body scanners" in use at airports, which supposedly detect anomalous forms or mass on the body or in the clothing.

It's questionable whether the body imagers actually work, in the first place. If the London Times story is correct, it's irrelevant.

The London Times is owned by the odious Rupert Murdoch, but like the Wall Street Journal, another Murdoch property, it still does have a reputation for accuracy, though you can't depend on it.

From the Times account: "Experts say explosive compounds such as PETN (pentaerythritol tetranitrate) could be implanted into a would-be suicide bomber and the wounds allowed to heal." The device "can be detonated by injection," says the paper.

Note the conditionals, could and can.

And note the lack of attribution, which follows standards more like those of the Daily Mail or the New York Post than of the pre-Murdoch Times of London.

Still, it seems plausible. That doesn't make it true, and stories anchored by mere plausibility are among the lowest forms of journalism (right after lottery-fever stories and all articles by anything called the White House press corps, that is).

Still ...

###

Find 21cif.imsa.edu

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For years, the 21st Century Information Fluency Project was owned and operated by the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy. In 2009, that all changed when the Academy decided it would no longer support the site. Its authors took over management and the resources were transferred to 21cif.com.

Until recently, the 21cif.imsa.edu link still worked, redirecting users to the new server. Since the new ownership had been in place for several years, we all felt it was time to pull the redirect from the IMSA server.  So today, if you search for 21cif.imsa.edu you get "Server Not Found."

It may be a poor marketing practice to disable such a link, but in keeping with the nature of our project we want users to find us regardless.  We are the top or nearly the top link in Google, Yahoo, etc. if you search for information fluency.

Our 21cif.com website is the repository for most of our resources: tutorials, tips, games, assessments, lesson plans, etc. There are thousands of free resources on the site.


Facebook is turning out to be one of our more active sites. Traffic is down to our traditional home page, but our fan base keeps growing. Dennis O'Connor is doing a good job of publishing links to our many resources through our Scoop.it magazines.  If you are not already a fan of our Facebook page, consider becoming one. You'll receive a different selection of current releases. The Internet Search Challenge Blog is our other source of new and updated resources.

So back to the "Server Not Found" problem. When you encounter this during searches, what is your reaction? Does frustration set in? Do you regroup and try another route? There's almost always another route.

Challenge Question: What prompted IMSA not to support 21cif? This challenge may be solved with a combination of querying and browsing or just by browsing.

Investigate before you pass it along

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Thanks to my beautiful spouse, here's an excellent example of the benefits of a little fact-checking.

Unfortunately, the person who "passed along" the email encouraging my wife to consider the views of Harvard Historian David Kaiser didn't fact check it first.

The tag line reads: "By passing this along, perhaps it will help to begin the awakening of Americans to where we are headed." Perhaps you also received this from a friend or relative.

The preface to the article (which can be described as anti-Obama) includes a lot of objective facts:

David Kaiser is a respected historian whose published works have covered a broad range of topics, from European Warfare to American League Baseball. Born in 1947, the son of a diplomat, Kaiser spent his childhood in three capital cities: Washington D.C., Albany, New York , and Dakar , Senegal ... He attended Harvard University, graduating there in 1969 with a B.A. in history. He then spent several years more at Harvard, gaining a PhD in history, which he obtained in 1976.. He served in the Army Reserve from 1970 to 1976.
He is a professor in the Strategy and Policy Department of the United States Naval War College . He has previously taught at Carnegie Mellon, Williams College and Harvard University. Kaiser's latest book, The Road to Dallas, about the Kennedy assassination, was just published by HarvardUniversityPress.

The article is a poster child for bias and doesn't seem to be written by a person with such impeccable credentials. That red flag prompted my wife to do some fact checking. She found the claims about David Kaiser listed above to be accurate. She also found his blog at http://historyunfolding.blogspot.com/.

Scanning the prose in the blog didn't seem to match the type of content in the email. But it was the ABOUT ME section that is most revealing:

The email circulating widely attributed to me comparing President Obama to Adolf Hitler is a forgery: see snopes.com/politics/soapbox/proportions.asp. 

While the email attempted to provide indisputable authorship information, it was a forgery. Two minutes worth of investigation is all the effort it took. The big step was the motivation to fact check rather than just read, believe and forward it to someone else.

Passing along that email didn't quite have the desired result.

If it's not a hoax, what is it?

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Dennis O'Connor and I are running a "Model Lesson" workshop tomorrow at the Midwest Educational Technology Conference in St. Charles, MO.

As part of the session, we're offering up four different challenges that demonstrate search and evaluation techniques. For this, we're using a spin-off of the RYT Hospital site: genochoice.com.

While students may not be able easily to detect the fictive nature of the site, the site is loaded with Red Flags.

What is not easily understood by seasoned investigators--and I expect most of the participants in tomorrow's session--is whether the site is a hoax or not. There is sufficient evidence to suggest it is not a hoax, contrary to numerous .edu sites that include genochoice on their hoax lists. The hoax theory starts to unravel the more you tug at it.

But if it isn't a hoax, what is it?

That's the challenge.

And it's a pretty good (i.e., deep) one. I'd like to hear readers' opinions on it. Why does this site exist?

By the way, the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus is another site that is likely in this shadowy category. Sure, it's bogus. But what is the purpose of the site?  Why would someone go to the trouble of keeping it fresh and perpetuating the fiction of a tree octopus? If you've never asked your students to figure that out, they've missed a real investigative challenge.

Search Practice

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Since last April, Google has published a daily search challenge called 'agoogleaday'.

These little challenges have only one correct answer but many ways to arrive at the answer. Since these are similar to the Search Challenges found in my blog, I thought I'd take a closer look.
Agoogleaday was created by Dan Russell as a daily trivia game to encourage creativity and search practice. Unlike the Internet Search Challenges found here, there is no timer or focus on a specific search technique or strategy and the search engine returns results only prior to April 2011. More on that shortly.
A nice feature of the puzzles is the hints that show effective keywords. This kind of scaffolding could be helpful to students. I found that I was able to solve some without searching at all, since I knew the answer to begin with. But the notion of practicing search skills has value.
Why return results that are no newer than April 2011?  According to the author, this is to prevent people from spoiling the puzzles for others by posting the answers online. This doesn't prevent people from posting the answers, it only prevents the Deja Google search engine from retrieving them. At one time I was concerned about this with my Search Challenges as well, but it hasn't proved to be a problem. In fact, people have posted the challenge questions online hoping someone will provide an answer. Most of the answers I've seen are incorrect, which ironically makes the challenges ever better and drives home the point that you need to evaluate the information you find online.
One aspect of agoogleaday for me has a less-than-positive connotation for learning and that is 'every search has one right answer.' While it may be appropriate for trivia puzzles, it is not how information usually works. There is seldom one right answer for significant questions. If the questions educators are asking students have only one right answer, we're not requiring enough thought from students. Or as David Thornburg has quipped, don't ask students questions that can be answered by searching Google (or posted by spoilers). You can still use a search engine. You just have to use your head to figure out a good answer.

That makes it more challenging both for the teacher and the student. And that's a good thing.

The Slow Death of the Link: Operator?

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For a number of years, one of the best investigative tools for checking to see what websites link to another website has been the link: operator. Over the past couple of years, the effectiveness of the link: operator has diminished.  I hope it's not on its way out as a free tool.

Here's how it works: Let's say you want to see all (actually a sample) of the webpages that link to a site you want to investigate. Martinlutherking.org is a common example for this purpose. The query is

link:martinlutherking.org

...and the results would reveal the urls of pages that link to the martinlutherking.org home page. This list would contain links from the martinlutherking.org site itself (most sites link to their home page), educational institutions warning about bias on the site (a red flag) and hate groups (another red flag).

Google was the go-to search engine for this until a couple years ago, when they really pared back the number of results they returned. At that time, I advised using Yahoo.com as the search engine. Yahoo's Site Explorer would return many more results than Google.

Within the past few months that has changed. Yahoo merged their Site Explorer with Bing. Now that search capacity is part of the Bing Webmaster set of tools. If I want to see who links to my site 21cif.com, I have to create a Webmaster account, download an xml file from Bing (BingSiteAuth.xml) which the search engine uses to collect data on my traffic, etc. That's 1) not as user friendly as it used to be, and 2) if a site doesn't include the xml file, I doubt any information could be retrieved.

So here's what happens today if I search for link:21cif.com:

Google: 48 results, many of which are from other 21cif.com pages
Yahoo: 1 result

From using other webmaster sites like majesticseo.com, where I had to create yet another account, I know there are 394 referring domains, 193 of which are educational and 16 are governmental. Too bad I can't see what they are without a paid subscription. This seriously impares one's ability to check the 'references' of a site by looking to see who voluntarily links to it.

Checking inbound links is not only of interest to a webmaster, it helps searchers be more critical consumers of information.

For investigative purposes, having a readily available link: operator has become a staple. Now the challenge is: what is out there that can replace it?  For the time being, I'm recommended going back to Google.

Updated Date/Freshness Challenge

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Thanks to teachers and librarians who use the resources on our site, we are able to stay up to date.  Many times the examples on 21cif are subject to Internet 'creep': a change is made to an external page over which we have no control.  With hundreds of challenges on the site, we don't routinely check up on the activities for alterations.

Here's a challenge I just updated. Ironically, it was the Date.swf Challenge and it contained three tasks that seemed 'stale': information on the web site no longer matched the challenge.

I adjusted one answer, substituted another page for a problem site and decided to leave the third example alone. Information taken from the context of the page is more accurate than the timestamp returned when the page opens in a browser window.

Java may be used to publish a timestamp of the exact moment a page is opened. Many times this is what you see if you check Page Information data. How did I manage to open a page exactly at the time it was last modified? Well, it's unlikely you did. The 'last update' is misleading and it's nothing more than the last time the page was opened by you.

In that case, other clues should be consulted for freshness. The example page in question hasn't changed in more than five years, yet its last modified is 'now'. If I was citing the page, I'd stick with the internal clues that make more sense.

Try the new challenge!

Leap Years, Leap Seconds

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Leap years are curious occasions. They occur every four years. Well, almost.

There are some four year stretches when a leap year is not observed. A century is not a leap year unless it is divisible by 400. That's why the year 2000 was a leap year and why 2100 is not.

This little factoid got me reading further and that's when I found the "leap second:" an adjustment to time made to coordinate atomic time with the earth's rotation. Atomic time is based on periods/oscillations of the Cesium-133 atom at the ground state (if you want to know more about that, it's easy to look up). The earth is very gradually slowing down (to find out why, that can also be looked up). To keep the clock and the earth in sync, there's the leap second.

Let's say you what to capitalize on a topic of current interest and reinforce information fluency with students. You could have them search for NEXT LEAP SECOND. These happen more often than leap years. And there's another one coming up later this year.

But if you look at the returns from this search in Google, you may see two conflicting reports:

About Leap Seconds

www.timeanddate.com › Time ZonesNext leap second on 2012-06-30 23:59:60 UTC. The last leap second was inserted like this, in the UTC time scale, and corresponding times elsewhere in the ...

When will the next leap second occur? - Yahoo! Answers

answers.yahoo.com › ... › Science & Mathematics › Astronomy & Space3 answers - Feb 2, 2010Top answer: None are currently in the works. Since leap seconds depend on factors that can only be observed, not predicted, leap seconds themselves cannot be ...

Obviously, these answers don't agree. If searchers don't pay attention to the date information, they could be misled.  It's a good opportunity to point out the importance of paying attention to the published date of information.

Search Challenge 002

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A very popular search challenge is the Kermit Challenge.

I'd rate this a novice challenge and a good one to introduce elementary level students to search strategy, search engines, keywords, snippets and urls.

When it was first created, we posted a time to beat of 10 minutes. The only thing that would ever take this long is an inability to describe in words what is in the picture. If someone failed to use the character's name, that could slow down the search.

 Today I lowered the time to beat to 5 minutes. It takes less than a minute if you know what you are looking for.

Search Strategy 
Start by asking, "what am I looking for?" The directions call for finding a URL of a matching picture of Kermit, a URL where Kermit can be heard talking. If students don't know what a URL is, this is a good opportunity to point to one. No need to define it, just call it the address where a page on the Internet lives. Show a URL.

Keywords 
Also part of the search strategy is, "what words do I already know that I could use to find the matching picture?" The most important is given in the directions: Kermit. This is a proper noun and as such, has a very specific meaning. We want to use words that have specific meanings--if we can--when looking for information on the Internet.Other words need to come from the picture. "What do you see in the picture?" Describe it. "What is Kermit wearing?" "At what kind of an event would you wear clothes like that?"

Search Engines 
Search engines use Keywords to find matching information. The engine used here is Yahoo. Students should know that there is more than one search engine (Google). You can put any combination of words in a search engine, but it's best to use just a few. The order of the words doesn't really matter. Like most searches today, this one does not require any Boolean operators, but I'd leave that topic for older grades.

Snippets 
Search engines return matches to your keywords on a page as snippets, shortened sections of text that include the URL of the page where matching words were found, maybe the date the page was last updated, some text from the page so you can see how the words are used, a link to the page and some other information that can be topics for older grades (cached, similar). Snippets are REALLY important in finding information that matches the keywords. The search engine just finds the words, you have to determine if the way the words are used makes sense. The top result may not be the best one. Snippets may also (often) contain better words than the ones you started with. Maybe the words commencement or graduation show up. That's where people wear caps and gowns. Those words could be put in a new query such as KERMIT GRADUATION.

URL 
A little more about URLS could be introduced, such as the parts of a URL and what they tell us. In this case, the answer has the name of the organization that owns the information and the names of several folders where that information is stored: first, a news folder. Inside the news folder is another folder called 'commence' and in that folder is another one labeled '1996.' Finally in that folder is the page that matches the challenge. This page is an .htm page which stands for the kind of file it is, a pretty common information file on the Internet.

Planting the seeds that information can be organized (structured) in folders is a good computational mindset to introduce. A discussion about how to organize information (one big pile, separate piles without names, all laid out in a row, etc.) might help students think about the fastest ways to find something and what works best on computers.

 Try the Challenge. Don't miss the opportunity for learning. What other lessons can you squeeze out of this experience?

Search Challenge 005: The LEGO Challenge

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I just updated the LEGO Challenge.  This one is challenging partly because it involves finding information that was originally posted almost a decade ago.

It's not a very difficult task; I'd rate it a beginning or novice task.

The issue is using good enough keywords to find information that's no longer fresh. This challenge reinforces the idea that a few carefully chosen keywords is all you need. Three keywords works well. At least one of them needs to be a very specific term like a Proper Noun. That really limits the results. 

Using the date, which is usually a good keyword to include, complicates matters because it assumes the winners were announced in 2003 which was not the case.  When starting, it is better to use less rather than more to see what the search engine retrieves.

There are three possible answers for the challenge. Any one of them is good enough to solve it.

Try the Challenge

Slinky Challenge (#006)

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The Toys in Space Challenge started with Apollo 8 taking Silly Putty into Space. After the Challenge had been up for a year or so, the answer (Apollo 8) was no longer difficult to find.

So the next iteration was "On what NASA mission was Slinky first taken into space?" That was an intermediate challenge that required searching the NASA database. With the profusion of information, it was only a matter of time until a simple word query was able to find an answer without searching anything other than Google's database.

Today, the challenge reads: "Who commanded the first NASA mission to take a Slinky toy into space?"  This no longer requires finding the right database to query, but it does require some strategy and careful skimming of results. Using the FIND command is also helpful in sorting through pages of content looking for a relevant term--i.e., one of the keywords you used. Using fewer rather than more keywords is also helpful. It may also help to think of how an answer might be worded and use those keywords. I'd be interested in hearing what strategies or techniques you use in finding the answer.

This is the sixth 'refreshed' Challenge. My goal is to keep at least 10 Challenges up-to-date that focus on slightly different search skills.

Try the Challenge.

Update on the link: operator

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I discovered something new today.
As I wrote a month or so ago, when I use the link: operator as so:

link:21cif.com

I get 48 results that link to it.

However, when I vary the same query, eliminating all the internal pages that link to the 21cif home page, as shown:

link:21cif.com -site:21cif.com

I get 7,690 results. Now that's more like it.

What is puzzling is why the number increases so dramatically, especially since the second operator is intended to limit results.  When I examine the results, I see that the term link is shown in bold in the Google results. Now I suspect that the query is actually doing this:

link AND 21cif.com -site:21cif.com

Which is basically confirmed when I try that query. So the link: operator doesn't work in combination with another operator, despite what Google says:

Find links to the Google home page not on Google’s own site.
link:www.google.com -site:google.com  source: http://www.googleguide.com/advanced_operators.html#link

I think Google needs to update its operators guide.


http://21cif.com -site:http://21cif.com is still a better query than the link: operator. 


Check out link: and -site: with a few of your favorite pages. Does it work as expected?

Backlinks

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Backlinks, or incoming links or "links to" are links to a URL found on other URLs.  They may be internal links, such as 21cif.com/ found on 21cif.com/tutorials/ or external, as in the case of 21cif.com found on coolhub.imsa.edu.


External backlinks may be valuable in researching the credibility of a site.  Backlinks help to answer questions like, Who links to 21cif.com? Why? Do they have any authority?


For years, a good way to find backlinks to a page was to use the link: operator  (e.g., the query:  lilnk:21cif.com). Search engines have made changes to link: so that fewer results are obtained. 
Yahoo.com did away with link: altogether.  Google is probably still the best choice, but they return only a fraction of what they once did.


This is where specialized search engines and databases comes in handy. 


Open Site Explorer (http://www.opensiteexplorer.org/) provides more complete backlink results than Google. It's a free service and easy to use. Results can be filtered to eliminate all the internal links.


Using a backlink checker is a step in the investigative search process. But just knowing how many backlinks there are isn't enough. Evaluating the referential credibility of a link target requires looking at the (representative) sites to see if they have authority and why they are a backlink.  Who would you expect to backlink to 21cif.com if it is a reputable site?


Who do you find?

Google's Really Advanced Search

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You've know doubt heard of Advanced Search. How about Really Advanced Search?

I spotted this at the bottom of a Google Search Results page today and had to take a look.

Among the search features, including the usual ones, are:

• words almost, but not quite entirely unlike:
• rhyming slang for:
• this exact word or phrase, whose sum of unicode code points is a mersenne prime:
• subtext or innuendo for:

and this:

• the words , but not , unless they contain either the intersection of phrases , , and or a gerund in which case the disjunction of and will also be taken into account (on Tuesdays). 

At the bottom of the page are also several links:

You can also... Tickle a unicorn Download our ranking code so you can run Google at home Search by odor Some of the features of really advanced search might make a good coding project. They might also be a challenge to explain. But they really make a better April Fools Joke.

Fact Checking Spam

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Mayotte Islands

Well, spam is good for at least one thing.  Fact checking practice.

Most spam is easily spotted. There are a few types of letters that seem to get replicated. Two of the more popular are: you've been selected to receive some money, or I need some money...  Usually I delete them without much thought, except to wonder why my spam filter lets them through.

In the the "you've been selected" category, I got this today:


From: Mr. Ban Ki-moon Subject: ONLINE NOTICE!!!!
United Nations has deposited the sum of $10,500,000.00 USD to western union, which is to be shared among you and other 7 Email users.You are entitled to $1,500,000.00 USD in the on-going united nations poverty alleviation program. Please send your Name,Address & Phone Number, email ID:
to union payment center via email (unionpayment768@sify.com) to apply for your payment.Or call Mr. David Young @ +60166561422 for more inquiries on the above message.
Regards,Mr. Ban Ki-moonSecretary-General (UNITED NATIONS) ©.http://www.un.org/sg/biography.shtml
Cool. I could use 1.5 M. This email screams "hit delete." Yet it's a real goldmine for fact checking and believability:

• Ban Ki-moon - yes, he is Secretary-General of the United Nations (but why is he writing to me?)
• info@diaockhanglinh.com.vn - (a Vietnamese real estate website?);
• ONLINE NOTICE!!!! (not the message you'd expect if you actually won the money);
• $10,500,000 USD - too much to be believable?
• "you and other 7" - Mr. Ban Ki-moon needs some help with English (or maybe he types as well as Illinois' former governor);
• $1,500,000 - a nice sum and it is one-seventh of 10.5 M, but why me? Am I impoverished?
• Please send your Name, Address & Phone Number, email ID - (stranger danger!)
• union payment768@sify.com - check it out: sify.com has no believable connection to a payment (payout) center;
• +60166561422 - what are the chances this is a real phone number? International code 6-Argentina? 60-Germany? 601-Mayotte Isl? (off the east coast of Africa); for no particular reason, I vote for Mayotte;
• ©.http://www.un.org/sg/biography.shtml - not sure about the copyright symbol, but this is Ban Ki-moon's biographical page. Nice try.

So many inaccuracies; so many things don't add up. It makes for good fact checking practice.
I've left two juicy fact checking "facts" untouched. Can you find them?

Mitt Romney Speaks Out on Homosexual Marriage at Liberty University

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Radical leftists are wigging out that Mitt Romney would affirm traditional values at at Christian university. Oh, the horrors!

See Matthew Shelley at National Journal, "Romney Backs Away From Gay Adoptions."

Also, "Romney Aims High in Speech at Liberty U":

LYNCHBURG, Virginia – Speaking at the graduation commencement of the largest Christian University in the country on Saturday, Mitt Romney – the first presumptive Republican nominee of the Mormon faith – spoke at length about the importance of God and faith, telling the crowd that people of different faiths can meet “in common purpose” through their moral decision-making and commitment to common causes, such as public service.

And in a nod to the social conservative movement he is still working to court, Romney reiterated his position on same-sex marriage, although he largely steered clear of political topics. “Marriage is a relationship between one man and one woman,” Romney said firmly as the crowd of about 35,000 stood and clapped.

He spent a significant portion of time discussing the shared challenges and experiences of people of faith, and occasionally leavened his remarks with a self-deprecating anecdote.

 “Your values will not always be the object of public admiration,” he told the more than 6,000 graduating seniors. “In fact, the more you live by your beliefs, the more you will endure the censure of the world. Christianity is not the faith of the complacent, the comfortable or of the timid.”

Romney emphasized the need to balance the material rewards in life with more spiritually uplifting aspects. “What we have, what we wish we had – ambitions fulfilled, ambitions disappointed; investments won, investments lost; elections won, elections lost – these things may occupy our attention, but they do not define us,” he said.

“And each of them is subject to the vagaries and serendipities of life.  Our relationship with our Maker, however, depends on none of this. It is entirely in our control, for He is always at the door, and knocks for us.  Our worldly successes cannot be guaranteed, but our ability to achieve spiritual success is entirely up to us, thanks to the grace of God.  The best advice I know is to give those worldly things your best but never your all, reserving the ultimate hope for the only one who can grant it.”

Plus, at Gateway Pundit, "Mitt Romney on Marriage at Liberty University: “One Man and One Woman” (Video)."

Queen Elizabeth's Spectacular Diamond Jubilee Pageant

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I love this stuff.

At Telegraph UK, "Queen enjoys spectacular Diamond Jubilee pageant at Windsor castle":

Performers from all corners of the globe entertained the Queen in a Diamond Jubilee celebration at Windsor castle on Friday night.

Twirling Mexican dancers, Russian horse riders and New Zealand's army band were among hundreds of artists who took to the stage in the equestrian and musical tribute.

The event's narrators Angela Rippon and Alan Titchmarsh and musicians Joss Stone and Rolf Harris, who will perform during a finale on Sunday, were among the guests.

The 90 minute show promises to take spectators on a "journey around the world" and features 500 horses and 800 performers, in military and equestrian displays.

During a tea party before Friday's performance, the Queen was not only presented with a pair of a pair of African bracelets but made to try on the the handmade jewellery.

The Queen, who was wearing black gloves, appeared to have little choice in the matter but laughed as Rose Kimanzi carried out the role usually performed by the royal dresser.

And here's the photo slideshow: "Diamond Jubilee Pageant at Windsor Castle."

Facebook Co-Founder Eduardo Saverin Renounces U.S. Citizenship to Avoid $1 Billion in Taxes

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Look, that's a lot of money. I don't really care about this Saverin kid, but clearly his case shows that folks like this aren't really American, with no national loyalty, despite gaining U.S. citizenship and becoming fabulously wealthy in this country.

And his decision to renounce isn't going over too well among Facebook fans. See the Los Angeles Times: "Americans feel defriended over perceived Eduardo Saverin tax dodge." I can see why. See, "Facebook's Eduardo Saverin gives up citizenship: Shrewd tax move?":

Here’s a tax tip for Mark Zuckerberg: Give up your U.S. citizenship.

The 27-year-old Facebook Inc. founder could face a tax bill of more than $1 billion after the company’s initial public offering, expected next week.

His former Harvard classmate who is known as “the other Facebook founder” may have found a way to cut the bill. Eduardo Saverin, who now lives in Singapore, has given up his U.S. citizenship. Tax experts say it’s a shrewd move.

Saverin, who was immortalized in the film “The Social Network” as Zuckerberg’s contentious former friend and business partner, has a 4% stake in the company, according to the Who Owns Facebook? website. His stake could be worth nearly $4 billion after the IPO.

“It's definitely savvy tax planning,” said Edward D. Kleinbard, a professor of law at USC who specializes in federal tax policy and international taxation. “He can argue that the value of the Facebook shares in September, when he gave up his citizenship, were significantly less than the value that will be set at the IPO next week.”

"Savvy tax planning."

Well, no. It's called tax evasion.

See the Wall Street Journal, "Taxes Got You Down? Renounce!" And at Bloomberg, "Facebook Co-Founder Saverin Gives Up U.S. Citizenship Before IPO."

And this Savarin kid is a playboy, it turns out. See "The Other Facebook Founder":

SINGAPORE — Facebook Inc. founder Mark Zuckerberg is one of the world's most famous chief executives. His former business partner and friend, Eduardo Saverin, is big in Singapore.

The Brazilian-born billionaire's skirmishes with Mr. Zuckerberg over the future of Facebook were dramatized in the 2010 film "The Social Network," which portrayed Mr. Saverin as a naive entrepreneur.

Mr. Saverin was squeezed out of Facebook early on, and found his stake in the Internet juggernaut diluted to less than 10% from 34%. Today, after more dilution and sales of some of his shares, his stake is about 2%, according to a person familiar with the matter.

But 2% can go a long way, given that Facebook filed documents Thursday to go public with a valuation of up to $96 billion. It can go especially far in Singapore, a financial center better known for banning the sale of chewing gum than for a thriving technology scene.

Since his arrival in 2009, the 30-year-old Mr. Saverin has attracted intense interest here. Singaporeans avidly track his nocturnal social habits. Many hoped he would fund local tech start-ups, but so far his local investments, which include a cosmetics firm, have been limited.

Mr. Saverin is regularly spotted lounging with models and wealthy friends at local night clubs, racking up tens of thousands of dollars in bar tabs by ordering bottles of Cristal Champagne and Belvedere vodka, according to people present on these occasions. He drives a Bentley, his friends say, wears expensive jackets and lives in one of Singapore's priciest penthouse apartments.

Mr. Saverin didn't respond to multiple interview requests.

Well, no surprise. Who's got time for lowly newspaper interviews when you're partying like a go-go '90s nouveau riche capitalist potentate?

BONUS: At The Atlantic, "Eduardo Saverin Isn't the Only Rich Guy Defriending the U.S."

Senator Rand Paul Slams Obama's Homosexual Exploitation: 'I wasn't sure his views on marriage could get any gayer...'

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What's amazing about this is Paul is libertarian, folks who are supposed to favor less government in the social realm. It guess he's not taking too well to O's pathetic flip-flopping on marriage to keep the progressive campaign money flowing. But what can you do?

At CNN, "TRENDING: Sen. Paul: I didn't think Obama's 'views on marriage could get any gayer'" (via Memeorandum).

At 5:15 minutes at the clip:


Added: From Linkmaster Smith, "Could John Travolta Help Increase Barack Obama’s Marriage Policy Gayness?"

Greece Should Leave the Euro

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According to Arianna Huffington, whose maiden name is Stassinopoulos, at the New York Times, "Greek Tragedy":

As I contemplate the statistics — especially the 54 percent unemployment rate among young Greeks — I think of all the stories behind this appalling data. All the dreams dashed. All the promise unfulfilled. And all the guilt, shame and fear that so often go hand in hand with intractable unemployment and little hope for a better future.

The punitive path of austerity and relentless economic contraction is, not surprisingly, likely to lead to further stagnation in 2013 and cannot be allowed to continue. And as last week’s election results show, the Greek people are not going to allow it to continue; they will instead demand change through either the ballot box or violence in the streets — or some combination of both.

The dangers of violent protest are obvious. But there are dangers in the ballot box, too: an extreme right-wing anti-immigration party received almost 7 percent of the vote, while Pasok, the establishment party of the left, lost 119 seats in Parliament in a humiliating third-place finish. If the European Central Bank does not abandon its destructive obsession with austerity, Greece will have few options but to leave the euro zone. This would be fraught with its own dangers, of course, but the European Union has left Greece with few sustainable alternatives.

RTWT.

Welcome Sign in Las Vegas an Attraction in its Own Right

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We always head south on the Las Vegas Boulevard to stop for gas and drinks before getting on the freeway. And I always notice the busloads of tourists who're stopped at that darned sign. I think, "One of these days we'll stop to take some souvenir photos," but we never do.

In any case, the Los Angeles Times reports on the "Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas Nevada" sign.

See, "Vegas sign a tourist attraction in its own right":

LAS VEGAS — It sits along a stretch of median on the less-glamorous south end of this city's glitzy gambling Strip, a stubborn holdover from another era. Yet, as the days turn to night and back into day, it beckons as many tourists, human tumbleweeds and adventure-seekers as any newfangled casino.

They come to see, touch and photograph the iconic "Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas Nevada" sign, a 1959 scramble of colors, typefaces and flashing light bulbs. They come in droves, as if on some obligatory Vegas pilgrimage, arriving in taxis, rental cars, stretch limos, golf carts, pickup trucks, motorcycles, double-decker tour buses. One woman even arrived on foot, pulling a suitcase — a wanderer defying the scorching desert heat.

The reason: There's just something, well, fabulous, about this sign.

For one thing, it's survived 53 years in a town with a penchant for bulldozers, wrecking balls and spectacular building implosions, where a 20-year-old resort is considered as ancient as the pyramids.

Designed by sign-maker Betty Willis, who never sought a copyright for her work and instead donated it to her beloved city, the 25-foot-tall kitschy cartoon has become a full-flush symbol of this gambling mecca, listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

"I just think it's cool. Who knows if those Rat Pack guys once stood here," Utah resident Marsha Hatch, 48, said on a recent Saturday evening. "It's like the Hollywood Walk of Stars, but it's ours. This sign belongs to Vegas."

Willis, now long retired, doesn't speak to reporters anymore. But in past interviews she said that back in 1959 — when Wayne Newton was a teenager and Frank Sinatra joined Dean Martin for the first time on stage at the Sands — the sign's diamond shape was unlike anything on the Strip. She added "fabulous" as the most fitting word to describe this 24-hour resort town.

More at the link.

PHOTO CREDIT: Wikipedia.

What Would You Say if Your Child Said He or She Was Gay?

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This clip is just the first five minutes or so from a fifteen minute segment on MSNBC earlier this week. The full link is here, uploading by a radical leftist. Chris Matthews gets visibly angry and berates Tony Perkins for his views and Barney Frank spits out the gay extremist talking points which make absolutely no rational sense and are designed only to make conservatives look uncaring and bigoted. This is the only way progressives can win the argument. They can't win on the merits. And again, the threat of being attacked and demonized is the main factor that explains the shift in support toward acceptance of gay marriage nationwide. Every single time it's been put to a vote at the state level --- 32 times --- gay marriage backers have lost. Perhaps the culture itself is changing along with the younger demographic. But up to the moment the left has only won through lies and intimidation, in legislatures or the courts.

And to answer the question at top: If my boys came out as gay I'd love them just as much as I always do, although it wouldn't change my opinion on what is the best family relationship for family stability, social and economic well-being, and the regeneration of values.

Happy #MothersDay From the Romneys

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In the mail, from Ann Romney:

On this day, I always remember my mother. I remember she was a wonderful cook. I remember how much she loved my dad. Ours was a loving home, where I knew the light was always on. I wish I could tell her again how much I love her.

Cherish your mothers. The ones who wiped your tears, who attended all those ball games or ballet recitals. The ones who believed in you, even when nobody else did, even when maybe you didn't believe in yourself.

Women wear many hats in their lives. Daughter, sister, student, breadwinner. But no matter where we are or what we're doing, one hat that moms never take off is the crown of motherhood.

There is no crown more glorious.

Happy Mother's Day.

Ann Romney

Barebackers for Barack, UPDATED! — Andrew 'Milky Loads' Sullivan Cover Story at Newsweek, 'The First Gay President'

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You can't make this stuff up.

As I reported previously, Andrew Sullivan really got off on Barack's coming out: "Barebackers for Barack!"

So now here comes the news that this week's cover story at Newsweek features the cover headline, "The First Gay President."

Politico has an excerpt from Sully's report, via Memeorandum:

It’s easy to write off President Obama’s announcement of his support for gay marriage as a political ploy during an election year. But don’t believe the cynics. Andrew Sullivan argues that this announcement has been in the making for years. “When you step back a little and assess the record of Obama on gay rights, you see, in fact, that this was not an aberration. It was an inevitable culmination of three years of work.” And President Obama has much in common with the gay community. “He had to discover his black identity and then reconcile it with his white family, just as gays discover their homosexual identity and then have to reconcile it with their heterosexual family,” Sullivan writes.

And don't forget about Sully's response when he first heard the news:

I do not know how orchestrated this was; and I do not know how calculated it is. What I know is that, absorbing the news, I was uncharacteristically at a loss for words for a while, didn't know what to write, and, like many Dish readers, there are tears in my eyes.

Yay, RAWMUSLGLUTES!

Get that dude a tissue! Gotta clean up those milky loads!

And hey, Vanderleun nailed it as well:

Gee whiz. I wonder if Obama will come out or not. He could of course avoid taking a "position" simply giving Andrew Sullivan one hot evening in the Lincoln Bedroom and leaking the photographs to Blueboy.com, but some things are just too revolting to evolve into.

Well Baracky's out and proud now.

More at Gateway Pundit, "Fabulous!… Newsweek Obama Cover: “The First Gay President”."

UPDATE: See Bookworm Room, "Another formerly major American magazine goes off the tracks *UPDATED*."

Also at Blazing Cat Fur, "Milky Loads is at it again."

RNC Chair Reince Priebus: Homosexual Marriage Not a Civil Right (VIDEO)

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Politico is reporting, "RNC chairman: Gays deserve 'dignity and respect,' but not marriage" (via Memeorandum):

Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus said Sunday that while he supports “dignity and respect” for all Americans, including gays and lesbians, that doesn’t mean gay marriage should be legalized.

“People in this country, no matter straight or gay deserve dignity and respect. However, that doesn’t mean it carries on to marriage. I think that most Americans agree that in this country, the legal and historic and the religious union, marriage has to have the definition of one man and one woman,” Priebus said on NBC's "Meet the Press."

More at Memeorandum.

Hot Rule 5 Sunday!

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Via Theo Spark:


Also at Pirate's Cove, "If All You See…are a bunch of little carbon footprints who may bring more little carbon footprints into the world, you might just be a Warmist." And Reaganite, "You Need to Check-Out Miss Peru, Son: The Name is Natalie Vertiz."

And at Daley Gator, "DaleyGator DaleyBabe Britney Palmer."

BONUS: At Camp of the Saints, "Offend a Feminist: Jayne Mansfield Knew Her Place."

Precious Moments: Andrew 'Milky Loads' Sullivan Tells Chris 'Tingles' Matthews He's Moved by Obama's Statement, 'We Are Equal Human Beings'

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I don't think you could find better progressive optics. I mean, seriously, Sully's emoting to Chris Matthews, who in 2008 confessed that, "I have to tell you, you know, it's part of reporting this case, this election ... the feeling most people get when they hear Barack Obama's speech. My, I felt this thrill going up my leg..."

Really.

You gotta watch this, via Weasel Zippers, "Video: Trig Truther Andrew Sullivan Tears Up Talking About “Father Figure” Obama’s Support of Gay Marriage…":


PREVIOUSLY: "Barebackers for Barack, UPDATED! — Andrew 'Milky Loads' Sullivan Cover Story at Newsweek, 'The First Gay President'."

Los Angeles Times Runs Interference for Obama Administration on Health Care Reform

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On the heels of the Washington Post's sordid hit piece attacking Mitt Romney as an alleged "anti-gay bully," here's comes a new series from the Los Angeles Times lionizing countries making "investments" in nationalized healthcare and warning against possible disruptions to the purported healthcare "jobs revival" if ObamaCare is struck down by the Supreme Court in June.

Yesterday's report is here, "Global push to guarantee health coverage leaves U.S. behind." And at today's paper, "Healthcare jobs fuel revival in Pittsburgh":

Nationwide, healthcare services have added some 770,000 to their payrolls since the start of the economic recovery in June 2009 — about a third of all new jobs, according to the U.S. Labor Department.

Absent the hiring related to healthcare, the country's unemployment rate would be 9.8% today instead of 8.1%, said economist Charles Roehrig of the Altarum Institute, a healthcare policy group in Ann Arbor, Mich. Pittsburgh's latest jobless figure is 7.1%.

Even though healthcare's growth remains solid — the industry added 19,000 jobs nationwide in April — Roehrig and other experts see an inevitable retrenchment.

Spending for medical care is nearing one-fifth of the American economy, much more than in other developed nations and beyond what governments, businesses and consumers can afford.

Uncertainties hang over President Obama's healthcare overhaul while theU.S. Supreme Court weighs the constitutionality of the law — a law that is likely to accelerate the already fast pace of consolidation in the industry.

"We're reaching this odd era where the growth rate of resources [is] rapidly declining at the same time the needs for healthcare are going up," Roehrig said.

Healthcare has fueled job growth for a generation. When Pittsburgh's steel industry began its collapse in the early 1980s, healthcare employment was a third of manufacturing's and the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center was little more than an operator of a single psychiatric hospital.

Today, from his suite on the 62nd floor of downtown's tallest building, once owned by U.S. Steel Corp., UPMC Chief Executive Jeffrey A. Romoff has a wide view of the city's cleaner skies and rivers — and of much of his $10-billion empire.

Notice how ObamaCare is accelerating "the already fast pace of consolidation in the industry," and by implication, if ObamaCare is struck down, this healthcare jobs boom will wither on the vine.

How typical.

Check back tomorrow for an update on the gloom!!

Al-Nusra Front Jihadists Claim Damascus Suicide Bombs

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A report from Telegraph UK (via Memeorandum):

A little-known jihadist group has claimed responsibility for a double suicide bombing in the Syrian capital Damascus which killed 55 people and wounded nearly 400.

Many of the casualties were burnt alive in their cars as they waited in rush hour traffic on Friday near offices of a government intelligence organisation, the intended target.

In the video, a group calling itself the Al-Nusra Front says the bombing was in response to attacks on residential areas by the regime of President Bashar Assad.

"We fulfilled our promise to respond with strikes and explosions," a distorted voice said, reading black text that rolled across a white screen while Islamic chanting was heard in the background.

The attack was frighteningly similar to al-Qaeda bombings in next-door Iraq, which have killed thousands of people since the US and British invasion in 2003.

The Al-Nusra Front has claimed past attacks through statements posted on militant websites. Western intelligence officials have suggested it could be a front for an al-Qaeda branch operating in Iraq.

Also at Jawa Report, "Jabhah Al-Nusra Claims Damascus Bombing."

Andrew Sullivan at Newsweek: Obama's Evolution on Homosexual Marriage

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Sully's gushing encomium is up at Newsweek, "The First Gay President":

For gay Americans and their families, the emotional darkness of Tuesday night became a canvas on which Obama could paint a widening dawn. But I didn’t expect it. Like many others, I braced myself for disappointment. And yet when I watched the interview, the tears came flooding down. The moment reminded me of my own wedding day. I had figured it out in my head, but not my heart. And I was utterly unprepared for how psychologically transformative the moment would be. To have the president of the United States affirm my humanity—and the humanity of all gay Americans—was, unexpectedly, a watershed. He shifted the mainstream in one interview. And last week, a range of Democratic leaders—from Harry Reid to Steny Hoyer—backed the president, who moved an entire party behind a position that only a few years ago was regarded as simply preposterous. And in response, Mitt Romney could only stutter.

And here's the heroic take on Obama's cheap political money grubbing:

Barack Obama had to come out of a different closet. He had to discover his black identity and then reconcile it with his white family, just as gays discover their homosexual identity and then have to reconcile it with their heterosexual family. The America he grew up in had no space for a boy like him: black yet enveloped by loving whiteness, estranged from a father he longed for (another common gay experience), hurtling between being a Barry and a Barack, needing an American racial identity as he grew older but chafing also against it and over-embracing it at times.

This is the gay experience: the discovery in adulthood of a community not like your own home and the struggle to belong in both places, without displacement, without alienation. It is easier today than ever. But it is never truly without emotional scar tissue. Obama learned to be black the way gays learn to be gay. And in Obama’s marriage to a professional, determined, charismatic black woman, he created a kind of family he never had before, without ever leaving his real family behind. He did the hard work of integration and managed to create a space in America for people who did not have the space to be themselves before. And then as president, he constitutionally represented us all.

I have always sensed that he intuitively understands gays and our predicament—because it so mirrors his own. And he knows how the love and sacrifice of marriage can heal, integrate, and rebuild a soul. The point of the gay-rights movement, after all, is not about helping people be gay. It is about creating the space for people to be themselves. This has been Obama’s life’s work. And he just enlarged the space in this world for so many others, trapped in different cages of identity, yearning to be released and returned to the families they love and the dignity they deserve.

See my previous entries: "Precious Moments: Andrew 'Milky Loads' Sullivan Tells Chris 'Tingles' Matthews He's Moved by Obama's Statement, 'We Are Equal Human Beings'," and "Barebackers for Barack, UPDATED! — Andrew 'Milky Loads' Sullivan Cover Story at Newsweek, 'The First Gay President'."